Читать книгу Jack the Hunchback: A Story of Adventure on the Coast of Maine - Otis James - Страница 6

When Aunt Nancy returned from the attic, she had a miscellaneous collection of cast-off garments sufficient to have clothed a dozen boys like Jack, providing they had been willing to wear female apparel.

"I thought there might be some of father's things upstairs," she said, examining once more each piece; "but I've given them away. You won't care if you have to put on a dress for a little while, will you? Here are some old ones of mine, and it will be a great deal better to use them than to stand around in wet clothes."

Jack was not at all anxious to masquerade as a girl, and would have preferred to "dry off," as he expressed it, in the barn; but, fearing lest he should offend the old lady at a time when he was about to ask a very great favor, he made no protest.

Aunt Nancy selected from the assortment two skirts, a pair of well-worn cloth shoes, and a shawl, saying as she handed them to the boy, —

"Now you can go out in the barn and put these on. Then we'll hang your clothes on the line, where they'll dry in a little while. In the mean time I'll find some sticking plaster for your face, and a piece of brown paper to put over your eye to prevent it from growing black."

Jack walked away as if he were about to perform a very disagreeable task, and by the time Aunt Nancy had carried the superfluous wardrobe upstairs and procured such things as she thought would be necessary in the treatment of the boy's wounds, he emerged from the barn looking decidedly shamefaced.

He knew he presented a most comical appearance, and expected to be greeted with an outburst of laughter; but Aunt Nancy saw nothing to provoke mirth in what had been done to prevent a cold, and, in the most matter-of-fact manner, began to treat the bruises on his face.

A piece of court plaster fully half as large as Jack's hand was placed over the scratch on his right cheek, another upon a small cut just in front of his left ear, while a quantity of brown paper thoroughly saturated with vinegar covered his eye and a goodly portion of his forehead.

This last was tied on with a handkerchief knotted in such a manner as to allow the two ends to stick straight up like the ears of a deformed rabbit.

During this operation Louis laughed in glee. It was to him the jolliest kind of sport to see his guardian thus transformed into a girl, and even Aunt Nancy herself could not repress a smile when she gazed at the woe-begone looking boy who appeared to have just come from some desperate conflict.

"I s'pose I look pretty rough, don't I?" Jack asked with a faint attempt at a smile. "I feel like as if I'd been broke all to pieces an' then patched up ag'in."

"It isn't as bad as it might be," Aunt Nancy replied guardedly; "but out here where we don't see any one it doesn't make much difference, and to run around this way a few hours is better than being sick for a week."