CHAPTER XVII

TORMENTING MERCY

After they had awakened Tubby and urged him into something resembling a trot they got into Cheslow proper by degrees. By the light of the very sunshiny afternoon Ruth thought the town looked far prettier than any place she had ever seen. This side of the railroad the houses were mostly old-fashioned, and there were few stores. There were many lawns and pretty, old-time gardens, while the elms and maples met in green arches overhead so that many of the streets were like rustic tunnels, the sun sifting through the thick branches to make only a fine, lacework pattern upon the walks and driveway.

They crossed the railroad near the station and struck into Market Street. Ruth would not allow Helen to drive her directly to the Curtis cottage. She had remembered Doctor Davison's words, and she thought that perhaps Mercy Curtis might be looking from the window and see her visitor arrive in the pony cart. So she got down at the corner, promising to meet her friend at that spot in an hour.

She could see the pretty cottage belonging to the railroad station agent before she had walked far. Its garden on the side was already a bower. But the rustic arbor on which the grape vines were trained was not yet sufficiently covered to yield any shelter from the street; therefore Ruth did not expect to find it occupied.

Just before she reached the cottage, however, she saw two little girls ahead of her, hesitating on the walk. They were talking seriously together when Ruth approached within earshot, and she heard one say to the other:

"Now, she'll be there in the window. We mustn't notice her, no matter what she does or says. You know what mamma said."

The other child was sobbing softly. "But she made me, oh, such a face! And she chopped her teeth at me just as though she'd bite me! I think she's the very hatefulest thing--"

"Hush! she's greatly to be pitied," said the older sister, with an air and in a tone that showed she copied it from the "grown-ups" whom she had heard discussing poor Mercy Curtis.

"I wish we'd gone 'round the other way," complained the other child.

"Now, come on. You needn't look into the window and smile. I'll do that."

"No," said the little one, stubbornly. "I'll go by on the opposite side of the way. And you must come, too, Anna. She-- she'd bite me if she could get the chance."

"Oh, well! Come on, little silly!" said her sister, and the two crossed over and Ruth, who watched them interestedly, saw them hurry by the cottage with scarcely a glance at the front windows.

But Ruth could see the outline of the lame girl's figure at one of the windows and she saw a lean fist shaken in the air at the two children going by. She could imagine the face Mercy Curtis "pulled," as well, and did not wonder that the two little ones took to their heels and ran away as fast as ever they could.

But, thus prepared for an unpleasant greeting from, the unfortunate and much to be pitied Mercy, Ruth smiled happily herself and waved her hand at the lame girl's window. Mercy saw her and, for a moment, was stricken with surprise so that she could neither greet her with frown or smile. She knew the girl from the Red Mill, although she had seen her so many weeks before; but Ruth ran into the yard and up the porch steps at the side of the house, and knocked at the door before the lame girl recovered from her amazement.

The motherly Mrs. Curtis came to the door and, the moment she saw who it was, received Ruth with open arms.

"You dear child! I am so glad you have come again. Did Doctor Davison tell you?" she whispered.

"He told me that Mercy would be glad to see me again; but I should have come before, as I promised, if I could have gotten in," Ruth said. "Will she see me?"

"She is not so well to-day," sighed the harassed mother. "This is one of her days of torment. I do not know how she will treat you, Ruth Fielding; but don't mind what she says to you, dear. Your being here will take her mind off her pain and off her own self."

Ruth laid aside her hat and coat and went into the sitting room. The crippled girl was in her wheel chair by the window. The instant Ruth entered she seized the wheels on either side and propelled the chair across the room in a sudden dash that threatened to run her visitor down. And her face was screwed up into such a mean look, and her eyes flashed so angrily, that Ruth was startled for a moment. But she stood her ground and instead of colliding with her, the nervous hands brought the chair to a sudden stop right before her.

"Thought you were going to be run down; didn't you?" snapped Mercy. "I'd ought to break your legs-- you run on them so fine. Showing off; wasn't you?"

She was offended because Ruth had run so lightly into the cottage and the girl from the Red Mill made a decision there and then that she would never come in to see Mercy again saving at a sedate walk. But she laughed lightly, and said:

"Do you want me to come on crutches, Mercy? That wouldn't help you a bit."

She put out her hand to take the lame girl's, but Mercy struck it smartly with her own, then whirled her chair around and returned to her former position by the window. She handled the wheel chair with remarkable dexterity, and Ruth, following her and taking a neighboring chair said:

"How quick you are! You get around your room so nicely. I think that's fine."

"You do; do you?" snapped the cripple. "If you'd been tied to this chair like I have, you'd be quick, too. I suppose it's something for me to be grateful for; eh?"

"It must be a lot better than lying abed all the time," said Ruth, quietly.

"Oh, yes! I suppose so!" snapped Mercy. Her conversation was mostly made up of snaps and snarls. "Everybody tells me all about how happy I ought to be because I'm not worse off than I am. That's their tormenting ways-- I know 'em! There!" she added, looking out of the window. "Here's another of those dratted young ones!"

Ruth glanced out, too. A lady was coming along the walk holding a little boy by the hand. Before they reached the cottage the little boy said something to his mother and then broke away from her hand and went to the other side of her, nearest the curb.

"There! he's hiding from me," said Mercy, bitterly.

The lady looked up and smiled pleasantly, but the cripple only returned her pleasant salutation with a cold nod. The child peeped out from around his mother's skirt.

"There! go along, you nasty little thing!" muttered Mercy. "See him trot on his little fat legs. I wish a dog would bite 'em!" It was useless, Ruth saw, to try and bring the cripple to a better mind. But she ignored her sallies at people who went by the window, and began to talk about the Red Mill and all that had happened to her since she had come to live with Uncle Jabez. Gradually she drew Mercy's attention from the street. She told about the flood, and how she, with Helen and Tom, had raced in the big automobile down the river road to warn the people that the water was coming. Mercy's eyes grew big with wonder and she listened with increasing interest.

"That's a nice place to live-- that mill," the cripple finally admitted, grudgingly. "And it's right on the river, too!"

"I can look 'way up and down the river from my window the first thing when I get up in the morning," Ruth said. "It's very pretty at sunrise. And then, the orchard and the fields are pretty. And I like to see the men ploughing and working the land. And the garden stuff is all coming up so pretty and green."

"I've got a garden, too. But it's not warm enough yet to plant many flower seeds," said Mercy.

"I suppose, when it comes warm, you can sit out in the arbor?"

"When the grape leaves get big enough to hide me-- yes," said Mercy. "I don't go into the garden excepting in schooltime. Then the young ones aren't always running by and tormenting me," snapped the cripple, chopping off her speech at the end.

She was a self-tormentor. It was plain that the poor child made herself very miserable by believing that everybody possessing a strong back and lively legs felt his or her superiority to her and delighted in "showing off" before her. The girl of the Red Mill felt only pity for a sufferer possessing such an unfortunate disposition.

She tried to turn the conversation always into pleasant channels. She held Mercy's interest in the Red Mill and her life there. She told her of the broods of downy chicks that she cared for, and the butter-making, and the household tasks she was able to help Aunt Alviry about.

"And don't you go to school?" demanded Mercy.

"I am going now. I hope this spring and summer to prepare myself for entering the Cheslow High."

"And then you'll be in town every day?" said Mercy, with one of her occasional wistful looks.

"I hope to. I don't know how I will get here. But I mean to try. Miss Cramp says if I'll come two or three times a week this summer, after our school doses, that she will help me to prepare for the High School exams., so I can enter at the beginning of the fall term.

"I know Miss Cramp," said Mercy. "She lives on this street. You'll be so busy then that you'll never get in to see me at all, I suppose."

"Why, I can come much oftener," cried Ruth. "Of course I will."