Part 10 (1/2)

”What can I do? Oh, what can I do?” he cried, running to and fro, and then, hardly aware of his movements, he shouted loudly for Gladys.

”Don't waken her!” Aunt Hannah cried warningly. ”If you can't help me there is nothing she can do.”

”Ain't she in the house?” Seth asked nervously.

He feared Aunt Hannah might die, and even though she was in no real danger, to stand idly by not knowing how to aid her was terrible.

He failed to observe that Snip was no longer in the room; but just at that moment his shrill barking was heard in an adjoining apartment, and Seth knew the dog had gone to find his little playmate.

”You mustn't get frightened after the danger is all over, my dear,”

Aunt Hannah said soothingly. ”But for you the house would have been destroyed, and now we have nothing to fear.”

”But you can't get up!” Seth wailed.

”That wouldn't be a great misfortune compared with losing our home, even if I never got up again,” the little woman said quietly. ”But I'm not going to lie here. Surely you can help me on to the couch.”

”Tell me how to do it,” Seth cried eagerly, and at that moment Gladys appeared in the doorway.

”Lean over so that I may put my arms around your neck,” Aunt Hannah said, giving no heed to the girl's cry of alarm.

”She fell an' hurt herself,” Seth said hurriedly to Gladys, as he obeyed the little woman's injunction. And then, as the latter put her uninjured arm over his neck, he tried to aid the movement by clasping her waist.

”If you can help me just a little bit we'll soon have her on the couch,” he cried to Gladys, who by this time was standing at his side.

Aunt Hannah was a tiny woman, and the children, small though they were, did not find it an exceedingly difficult task to raise her bodily from the floor.

Then Gladys lighted a lamp, and it was seen that, in addition to the injuries received by the fall, Aunt Hannah had been grievously burned.

”Yes, I'm in some pain,” she said in reply to Seth's anxious questioning; ”but now that the house has been saved I have no right to complain. Get some flour, Gladys, and while you are putting it on the worst of the burns, perhaps Seth will run over to Mrs. Dean an' ask if she can come here a few minutes.”

”Where does Mis' Dean live?” the lad asked hurriedly, starting toward the door; and he was already outside when Gladys replied:

”It's the first house past the grove where Snip and I went this afternoon!”

Seth gave no heed to his lameness as he ran at full speed down the road; the thought that now was the time when he might in some slight degree repay Aunt Hannah for having given shelter to him and Snip, lending speed to his feet.

The Dean family had not yet retired when he arrived at the farmhouse, and, stopping only sufficiently long to tell in fewest possible words of what had happened, Seth ran back to help Gladys care for the invalid, for he was feverishly eager to have some part in the nursing.

Aunt Hannah was on the couch with her wounds partially bandaged when the boy returned, and although her suffering must have been severe, that placid face was as serene as when he bade her good-night.

”Mis' Dean is comin' right away. What can I do?”

”Nothing more, my dear,” the little woman replied quietly. ”You have been of such great service to me this night that I can never repay you.”

”Please don't say that, Aunt Hannah,” Seth cried, his face flus.h.i.+ng with shame as he remembered the past. ”If I could only do somethin'

real big, then perhaps you wouldn't think I was so awful bad.”

”I believe you to be a good boy, Seth, and shall until you tell me to the contrary. Even then,” she added with a smile, ”I fancy it will be possible to find a reasonable excuse.”

The arrival of Mrs. Dean put an end to any further conversation, and Seth was called upon to aid in carrying Aunt Hannah to the foreroom, in which was the best bed, although the little woman protested against anything of the kind.