“Of course you won’t, you foolish child,” exclaimed Aunt Izzie. “Dear, dear, what on earth will come next? Stop crying, Elsie – do you hear me? You shall all be got out in a few minutes.”
And sure enough, the next thing came a rattling at the blinds, and there was Alexander, the hired man, standing outside on a tall ladder and nodding his head at the children. The little ones forgot their fright. They flew to open the window, and frisked and jumped about Alexander as he climbed in and unlocked the door. It struck them as being such a fine thing to be let out in this way, that Dorry began to rather plume himself for fastening them in.
But Aunt Izzie didn’t take this view of the case. She scolded them well, and declared they were troublesome children, who couldn’t be trusted one moment out of sight, and that she was more than half sorry she had promised to go to the Lecture that evening. “How do I know,” she concluded, “that before I come home, you won’t have set the house on fire, or killed somebody?”
“Oh, no we won’t! no we won’t!” whined the children, quite moved by this frightful picture. But bless you – ten minutes afterward they had forgotten all about it.
All this time Katy had been sitting on the ledge of the bookcase in the Library, poring over a book. It was called Tasso’s Jerusalem Delivered. The man who wrote it was an Italian, but somebody had done the story over into English. It was rather a queer book for a little girl to take a fancy to, but somehow Katy liked it very much. It told about knights, and ladies, and giants, and battles, and made her feel hot and cold by turns as she read, and as if she must rush at something, and shout, and strike blows. Katy was naturally fond of reading. Papa encouraged it. He kept a few books locked up, and then turned her loose in the Library. She read all sorts of things: travels, and sermons, and old magazines. Nothing was so dull that she couldn’t get through with it. Anything really interesting absorbed her so that she never knew what was going on about her. The little girls to whose houses she went visiting had found this out, and always hid away their story-books when she was expected to tea. If they didn’t do this, she was sure to pick one up and plunge in, and then it was no use to call her, or tug at her dress, for she neither saw nor heard anything more till it was time to go home.
This afternoon she ready the Jerusalem till it was too dark to see any more. On her way up stairs she met Aunt Izzie, with bonnet and shawl on.
“Where have you been?” she said. “I have been calling you for the last half-hour.”
“I didn’t hear you, ma’am.”
“But where were you?” persisted Miss Izzie.
“In the Library, reading,” replied Katy.
Her aunt gave a sort of sniff, but she knew Katy’s ways, and said no more.
“I’m going out to drink tea with Mrs. Hall and attend the evening Lecture,” she went on. “Be sure that Clover gets her lesson, and if Cecy comes over as usual, you must send her home early. All of you must be in bed by nine.”
“Yes’m,” said Katy; but I fear she was not attending much, but thinking, in her secret soul, how jolly it was to have Aunt Izzie go out for once. Miss Carr was very faithful to her duties; she seldom left the children, even for an evening; so whenever she did, they felt a certain sense of novelty and freedom, which was dangerous as well as pleasant.
Still, I am sure that on this occasion Katy meant no mischief. Like all excitable people, she seldom did mean to do wrong; she just did it when it came into her head. Supper passed off successfully, and all might have gone well, had it not been that after the lessons were learned and Cecy had come in, they fell to talking about “Kikeri.”
Kikeri was a game which had been very popular with them a year before. They had invented it themselves, and chosen for it this queer name out of an old fairy story. It was a sort of mixture of Blindman’s Buff and Tag – only instead of any one’s eyes being bandaged, they all played in the dark. One of the children would stay out in the hall, which was dimly lighted from the stairs, while the others hid themselves in the nursery. When they were all hidden they would call out “Kikeri,” as a signal for the one in the hall to come in and find them. Of course, coming from the light he could see nothing, while the others could see only dimly. It was very exciting to stand crouching up in a corner and watch the dark figure stumbling about and feeling to right and left, while every now and then somebody, just escaping his clutches, would slip past and gain the hall, which was “Freedom Castle,” with a joyful shout of “Kikeri, Kikeri, Kikeri, Ki!” Whoever was caught had to take the place of the catcher. For a long time this game was the delight of the Carr children; but so many scratches and black-and-blue spots came of it, and so many of the nursery things were thrown down and broken, that at last Aunt Izzie issued an order that it should not be played any more. This was almost a year since; but talking of it now put it into their heads to want to try it again.
“After all we didn’t promise,” said Cecy.
“No, and Papa never said a word about our not playing it,” added Katy, to whom “Papa” was authority, and must always be minded, while Aunt Izzie might now and then be defied.
So they all went up stairs. Dorry and John, though half undressed, were allowed to join the game. Philly was fast asleep in another room.
It was certainly splendid fun. Once Clover climbed up on the mantel-piece and sat there, and when Katy, who was finder, groped about a little more wildly than usual, she caught hold of Clover’s foot, and couldn’t imagine where it came from. Dorry got a hard knock, and cried, and at another time Katy’s dress caught on the bureau handle and was frightfully torn; but these were too much affairs of every day to interfere in the least with the pleasures of Kikeri. The fun and frolic seemed to grow greater the longer they played. In the excitement, time went on much faster than any of them dreamed. Suddenly, in the midst of the noise, came a sound – the sharp distinct slam of the carry-all door at the side entrance. Aunt Izzie had returned from her Lecture!
The dismay and confusion of that moment! Cecy slipped down stairs like an eel, and fled on the wings of fear along the path which led to her home. Mrs. Hall, as she bade Aunt Izzie goodnight, and shut Dr. Carr’s front door behind her with a bang, might have been struck with the singular fact that a distant bang came from her own front door like a sort of echo. But she was not a suspicious woman; and when she went up stairs there were Cecy’s clothes neatly folded on a chair, and Cecy herself in bed, fast asleep, only with a little more color than usual in her cheeks.
Meantime, Aunt Izzie was on her way up stairs, and such a panic as prevailed in the nursery! Katy felt it, and basely scuttled off to her own room, where she went to bed with all possible speed. But the others found it much harder to go to bed; there were so many of them, all getting into each other’s way, and with no lamp to see by. Dorry and John popped under the clothes half undressed, Elsie disappeared, and Clover, too late for either, and hearing Aunt Izzie’s step in the hall, did this horrible thing – fell on her knees, with her face buried in a chair, and began to say her prayers very hard indeed.
Aunt Izzie, coming in with a candle in her hand, stood in the doorway, astonished at the spectacle. She sat down and waited for Clover to get through, while Clover, on her part, didn’t dare to get through, but went on repeating “Now I lay me” over and over again, in a sort of despair. At last Aunt Izzie said very grimly: “That will do, Clover, you can get up!” and Clover rose, feeling like a culprit, which she was, for it was much naughtier to pretend to be praying than to disobey Aunt Izzie and be out of bed after ten o’clock, though I think Clover hardly understood this then.
Aunt Izzie at once began to undress her, and while doing so asked so many questions, that before long she had got at the truth of the whole matter. She gave Clover a sharp scolding; and, leaving her to wash her tearful face, she went to the bed where John and Dorry lay,