And sez she, “Ah! Miss Flamm has sent for you and Mr. Allen to come over there right away. There has been a axident.”
“Yes,” sez she. “The little girl has got hurt, and they don’t think she will live. Poor little pretty thing,” sez the hired girl, and busted out a cryin’ agin.
“How did she get hurt?” sez I, as I laid down the coat, and went to tyin’ on my bunnet mekanically.
“Wall, the nurse had her out with the baby and the little boys. And we s’pose she had been drinkin’ too much. We all knew she drinked, and she wuzn’t in a condition to go out with the children this mornin’, and Miss Flamm would have noticed it and kep’ ’em in, but the dog wuz sick all night, and Miss Flamm wuz up with it most all night, and she felt wore out this mornin’ with her anxtety for the dog, and her want of sleep, and so they went out, and it wuzn’ more’n half an hour before it took place. She left the baby carriage and the little boys and girl in a careless place, not knowin’ what she wuz about, and they got run over. The baby and the little boys wuzn’t hurt much, but they think the little girl will die. Miss Flamm went right into a caniption fit,” sez she, “when she wuz brung in.”
“It is a pity she hadn’t went into one before,” sez I very dryly, dry as a chip almost. My axents wuz fairly dusty they wuz so dry. But my feelin’s for Miss Flamm moistened up and melted down when I see her, when we went into the room. It didn’t take us long for they are still to the tarven, and we met Josiah Allen at the door, so he went with us.
Yes, Miss Flamm felt bad enough, bad enough. She has got a mother’s heart after all, down under all the strings and girtins, and laces, and dogs, etc., etc., that have hid it, and surrounded it. Her face wuz jest as white and deathly as the little girl’s, and that wuz jest the picture of stillness and death. And I remembered then that I had heard that the little girl wuz her favorite amongst her children, whenever she had any time to notice ’em. She wuz a only daughter and a beauty, besides bein’ smart.
The doctor had been there and done what he could, and go gone away. He said there wuz nothin’ more to do till she came out of that stuper, if she ever did.
But it looked like death, and there Miss Flamm sot alone with her child, and her conscience. She wuzn’t a cryin’ but there wuz a look in her eyes, in her set white face that went beyond tears, fur beyond ’em. She gripped holt of my hand with her icy cold ones, and sez she, “Pray for me!” She wuz brung up a Methodist, and knew we wuz the same. My feelin’s overcame me as I looked in her face and the child’s, both lookin’ like dyin’ faces, and I sez with the tears a jest runnin’ down my cleeks and a layin’ my hand tender on her shoulder, “Is there anything I can do for you, you poor little creeter?”