I'd had some bad ones here, but you beat anything I ever saw! Why, you must have been rolling in the pond to get yourself in such a condition."
"Yes, ma'am, I have," Jack replied meekly as he again tried to brush the mud from his face, but only succeeded in grinding it in more deeply.
"What's the matter with your nose? It's bleeding!" Aunt Nancy screamed in her excitement; while Louis, who was sitting on the grass near the broad doorstep, crowed and laughed as if fancying she was talking to him.
"Three fellers out there tried to make me promise I'd go away before to-morrow night, an' when I wouldn't, they gave me an awful poundin'. Then the fun was wound up by throwin' me in the pond."
"Three boys!" and Aunt Nancy's tone was an angry one. "I'll venture to say William Dean was among the party; and if he thinks he's going to drive off every decent child in the neighborhood, he is mistaken. I'd do my chores alone, and wait on the city folks too, before he should come here again!"
Then Aunt Nancy peered in every direction as if fancying the evil-doers might yet be in the vicinity where she could punish them immediately, while Jack stood silent, if not quite motionless, wiping the mixture of blood and mud from his face in a most disconsolate manner.
Aunt Nancy's anger vanished, however, as she turned again toward the cripple.
All her sympathies were aroused, but not to such an extent as to smother her cleanly instincts.
"Did they hurt you very much?" she asked solicitously.
"They wasn't any too careful about hittin'," Jack replied with a feeble attempt at a smile, to show that his injuries were not really serious. "If there hadn't been more than one, I'd have hurt him some before he got me into the pond."
"I wish you had flogged every single member of that party in the most severe – No, I don't either, for it wouldn't be right, Jack. We are told when anybody smites us on one cheek, we must turn the other also; but it's terrible hard work to do right sometimes. I'm glad you didn't strike them, though I do wish they could be punished."
Again Aunt Nancy showed signs of giving way to anger, and one could see that a severe conflict was going on in her mind as she tried to obey the injunctions of the Book she read so often.
As if to turn her attention from vengeful thoughts, she immediately made preparations for dressing Jack's wounds.
"If you can stand a little more water," she said, "we'll try to get you into something like a decent condition."
"I reckon I can stand almost anything after the dose I've had," Jack replied grimly; and Aunt Nancy led him under the pump, stationing him directly beneath the spout as she said, —
"Now I'll wash the mud off; but if the water feels too cold let me know, and we'll heat it."
"I'll take it as long as you can keep the handle goin'," Jack replied as he bent his head and involuntarily drew a long breath preparatory to receiving the expected shock.
Aunt Nancy could pump a long while when it was for the purpose of removing dirt; and during the next five minutes she deluged Jack with the cold spring water until he stood in the centre of a miniature pond, no longer covered with mud, but dripping tiny streams from every portion of his face and garments.
Sitting on the grass near by, Louis clapped his hands and laughed with glee at what he probably thought a comical spectacle designed for his own especial amusement.
It was not until Jack had been, as he expressed it, "so well rinsed it was time to wring him out," that either he or Aunt Nancy remembered the very important fact that he had no clothes to replace those which were so thoroughly soaked.
"Now what are we going to do?" Aunt Nancy asked in dismay, as she surveyed the dripping boy, who left little rivers of water behind him whenever he moved. "You haven't got a second shirt to your back, and I can't let you remain in these wet clothes."
"I might go out to the barn an' lay 'round there till they dried," Jack suggested.
"Mercy on us, child, you'd get your death of cold! Wait right here while I go into the attic and see if there isn't something you can wear for a few hours. Don't step across the threshold."
This last admonition was unnecessary.
Short a time as Jack had known Aunt Nancy, he was reasonably well acquainted with her cleanly habits, and to have stepped on that floor, which was as white as boards can be, while in his present condition, would have been to incur the little woman's most serious displeasure.
He was also forced to remain at a respectful distance from Louis, who laughed and crowed as if begging to be taken, and while moving farther away he whispered, —
"It wouldn't do at all to touch you when I'm so wet, old fellow, but I'll lug you around as much as you want as soon as I'm dried off. After Aunt Nancy comes back, I'm goin' to talk with her about Farmer Pratt, an' see if she'll agree to say we ain't here in case he calls. You an' I'll be in a pretty hard box if she don't promise to tell a lie for us."
Chapter VI
A MENTAL STRUGGLE
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
