n Prudy, "and blood
comes a-runnin' down, and he kills you dead, and then he puts you in
jail, and then he chased us--don't you hear him comin'?"

"What does all this mean?" cried grandma and aunt Madge in one
breath. "Have you been in that mowing-field, children?"

Grace and Susy hung their heads.

"Yes, they did," said Prudy, "and I wasn't well, and they shouldn't
have gone and took me up there, and 'twas 'cause they were naughty."

"What shall I do with children that disobey me in this manner?" said
grandma, much displeased.

"Worst of all," said aunt Madge, pulling off Prudy's shoes, "this
child has got her feet wet, and is sure to be sick."

CHAPTER VI

PRUDY SICK

When aunt Madge went up stairs that night she found little Prudy
hiding her head under the pillow, and screaming with fright.

"O, there I was!" cried the child, tossing up her arms, "all tumbled
out of the window! And the man got me, and I begun to be dead!"

"Why no, darling!" said aunt Madge, "here is auntie close by you, and
here you are in your pretty white bed;--don't you see?"

"No, no!" screamed Prudy, "I'm up in the Pines, I ain't here."

"Perhaps you'd like to have me sing to you," said aunt Madge; and she
began, in a low voice, a little ditty Prudy loved:

"There was a little darling
I used to know,
And they called her Prudy,
Long time ago."

"Stop, Nancy," said Prudy, "you put a toad in my mouth!--I must have a
drink--dreffully!"

Aunt Madge brought some water, but her fingers were not steady, and
the glass trembled against the child's hot lips. She watched till
Prudy dozed again, and then stole softly down stairs to get a "night
candle," and to tell her mother she was really afraid Prudy was going
to be sick.

But Mrs. Parlin said aunt Madge mustn't be nervous; that children were
very apt to be "out of their heads" in the night, and she was pretty
sure Prudy would wake up bright in the morning.

Aunt Madge tried to hope so, but she hardly slept a wink, for Prudy
tossed and twisted all night. Sometimes she thought she was picking
berries on the tufted coverlet. Sometimes she cried out that "the
crazy man was coming with a axe."

When grandma saw her purple cheeks by daylight she did not laugh at
aunt Madge. She brushed the soft curls away from the little one's hot
temples, and said softly,--

"How do you feel, Prudy, darling?"

A wild light burned in the child's eyes. "It isn't Prudy!" s