When Miss Mehitable came back, however, half buried under the mountain of bedding, she was greeted by a portentous silence. Hurrying upstairs, she discovered that Araminta had fallen from the ladder and was in a white and helpless heap on the floor, while Miss Evelina chafed her hands and sprinkled her face with water.
"For the land's sake!" cried Miss Hitty. "What possessed Minty to go and fall off the ladder! Help me pick her up, Evelina, and we'll lay her on the bed in the room we've just cleaned. She'll come to presently. She ain't hurt."
But Araminta did not "come to." Miss Mehitable tried everything she could think of, and fairly drenched the girl with cold water, without avail.
"What did it?" she demanded with some asperity. "Did she see anything that scared her?"
"No," answered Miss Evelina, shrinking farther back into her veil. "I was downstairs and heard her scream, then she fell and I ran up. It was just a minute or two before you came in."
"Well," sighed Miss Hitty, "I suppose we'll have to have a doctor. You fix that bed with the clean things I brought. It's easy to do it without movin' her after the under sheet is on and I'll help you with that. Don't pour any more cold water on her. If water would have brung her to she'd be settin' up by now. And don't get scared. Minty ain't hurt."
With this comforting assurance, Miss Hitty sped down-stairs, but her mind was far from at rest. At the gate she stopped, suddenly confronted by the fact that she could not bring Anthony Dexter to Evelina's house.
"What'll I do!" moaned Miss Hitty. "What'll I do! Minty'll die if she ain't dead now!"
The tears rolled down her wrinkled cheeks, but she ran on, as fast as her feet would carry her, toward Doctor Dexter's. "The way'll be opened," she thought--"I'm sure it will."
The way was opened in an unexpected fashion, for Doctor Ralph Dexter answered Miss Hitty's frantic ring at his door.
"I'd clean forgotten you," she stammered, wholly taken aback. "I don't believe you're anything but a play doctor, but, as things is, I reckon you'll have to do."
Doctor Ralph Dexter threw back his head and laughed--a clear, ringing boyish laugh which was very good to hear.
"'Play doctor' is good," he said, "when anybody's worked as much like a yellow dog as I have. Anyhow, I'll have to do, for father's not at home. Who's dead?"
"It's Araminta," explained Miss Hitty, already greatly relieved. "She fell off a step-ladder and ain't come to yet."