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Sunflowers And A Rushlight
by
When I woke I found a basin of bread and milk, with a plate over it to keep it warm, on the rush-bottomed chair by the bed. It hadn’t kept it very warm. It made me think of the suppers of the Three Bears in their three basins, and I daresay theirs were rather cold too. Perhaps their Jael boiled their bread and milk at her own time, whether they were ready for it or not.
But I think mine must have been like the Little Bear’s supper, for I ate it all up.
My head was much better, so I went up to our attic, and got out the Fairy Book, that I might not think too much about Margery, and it opened of itself at the Puzzling Tale. I was just beginning to read it, when I heard a noise under the rafters, in one of those low sort of cupboard places that run all round the attic, where spare boxes and old things are kept, and where Margery and I sometimes play at Voyages of Discovery.
I thought Margery’s black cat must be shut up there, but when I went to look, there was another crash, and then the door burst open, and out came Jael, with her cap so crushed that I could not help laughing.
I was glad to see her, for my head was well, so I liked her again, and did not mind her being ogre-footed, and I wanted to know what she was doing; but Jael had not got to like me again, and she spoke very crossly, and said it was more trouble of my giving, and that Dr. Brown had said that I was to have a light in my bedroom till Miss Margery came back–“if ever there was a sinful waste of candle-grease!” and that it wasn’t likely the Mistress was going to throw away money on box night-lights; and she had sent the boy to the shop for half-a-dozen farthing rushlights–if they kept them, and if not, for half-a-pound of “sixteen” dips, and had sent her to the attic to find the old Rushlight-tin.
“What’s it like, Jael?”
“It’s like a Rushlight-tin, to be sure,” said Jael. “And it’s not been used since your Pa and Ma’s last illness. So it’s safe to be thick with dust, and a pretty job it is for me to have to do, losing the pin out of my cap, and tearing my apron on one of them old boxes, all to find a dirty old Rushlight, just because of your whims and fancies, Miss Grace!”
“Jael, I am so sorry for your cap and apron. I will go in and find the Rushlight for you. Tell me, is it painted black, with a lot of round holes in the sides, and a little door, and a place like a candlestick in the middle? If it is, I know where it is.”
I knew quite well. It was behind a very old portmanteau, and a tin box with a wig and moths in it, and the bottom part of the shower-bath, just at the corner, which Margery and I call Bass’s Straits. So I made a Voyage of Discovery, and brought it out, “thick with dust,” as Jael had said.
And Jael took it, and went away very cross and very ogre-footed, with her cap still awry; and as she stumped down the attic-stairs, and kept clattering the Rushlight against the rails, I could hear her muttering–“A sinful waste of candle-grease–whims and fancies–scandilus!”
CHAPTER III.
PAIN PAST. A REPRIEVE FROM THE BARBER. SUNFLOWER SLEEP. LITTLE MICHAELMAS GOOSE. SNUFFING A RUSHLIGHT. A PURSUIT OF KNOWLEDGE UNDER DIFFICULTIES. GRANDMAMMA WITH A WATCHMAN’S RATTLE.
Jael’s ogre-footsteps had hardly ceased to resound from the wooden stairs, when these shook again to the tread of Dr. Brown.
He said–“How are you??” and I said–“Very happy, thank you,” which was true. For the only nice thing about dreadful pain is that, when it is gone, you feel for a little bit as if you could cry with joy at having nothing to bear.