Racketty-Packetty House and Other Stories Read Online Free Page B

crown, and shavings for supper—because they had nothing else, and in fact the gentleman mouse had brought the shavings from his nest as a present.
    Cynthia played nearly all day and the Duchess and Lady Gwendolen and Lady Muriel and Lady Doris and Lord Hubert and Lord Francis and Lord Rupert got worse and worse.
    By evening they were all raging in delirium and Lord Francis and Lady Gwendolen had strong mustard plasters on their chests. And right in the middle of their agony Cynthia suddenly got up and went away and left them to their fate—just as if it didn’t matter in the least. Well in the middle of the night Meg and Peg and Lady Patsy wakened all at once.
    â€œDo you hear a noise?” said Meg, lifting her head from her ragged old pillow.
    â€œYes, I do,” said Peg, sitting up and holding her ragged old blanket up to her chin.
    Lady Patsy jumped up with feathers sticking up all over her hair, because they had come out of the holes in the ragged old bed. She ran to the window and listened.
    â€œOh! Meg and Peg!” she cried out. “It comes from the Castle. Cynthia has left them all raving in delirium and they are all shouting and groaning and screaming.”
    Meg and Peg jumped up too.
    â€œLet’s go and call Kilmanskeg and Ridiklis and Gustibus and Peter Piper,” they said, and they rushed to the staircase and met Kilmanskeg and Ridiklis and Gustibus and Peter Piper coming scrambling up panting because the noise had wakened them as well.
    They were all over at Tidy Castle in a minute. They just tumbled over each other to get there—the kind-hearted things. The servants were every one fast asleep, though the noise was awful. The loudest groans came from Lady Gwendolen and Lord Francis because their mustard plasters were blistering them frightfully.
    Ridiklis took charge, because she was the one who knew the most about illness. She sent Gustibus to waken the servants and then ordered hot water and cold water, and ice, and brandy, and poultices, and shook the trained nurse for not attending to her business—and took off the mustard plasters and gave gruel and broth and cough syrup and castor oil and ipecacuanha, and every one of the Racketty-Packettys massaged, and soothed, and patted, and put wet cloths on heads, until the fever was gone and the Castle dolls all lay back on their pillows pale and weak, but smiling faintly at every Racketty-Packetty they saw, instead of turning up their noses and tossing their heads and sniffing loudly, and just scorning them.
    Lady Gwendolen spoke first and instead of being haughty and disdainful, she was as humble as a newborn kitten.
    â€œOh! You dear, shabby, disrespectable darling things!” she said. “Never, never, will I scorn you again. Never, never!”
    â€œThat’s right!” said Peter Piper in his cheerful, rather slangy way. “You take my tip—never you scorn any one again. It’s a mistake. Just you watch me stand on my head. It’ll cheer you up.”
    And he turned six somersaults—just like lightning—and stood on his head and wiggled his ragged legs at them until suddenly they heard a snort from one of the beds and it was Lord Hubert beginning to laugh and then Lord Francis laughed and then Lord Hubert shouted, and then Lady Doris squealed, and Lady Muriel screamed, and Lady Gwendolen and the Duchess rolled over and over in their beds, laughing as if they would have fits.
    â€œOh! You delightful, funny, shabby old loves!” Lady Gwendolen kept saying. “To think that we scorned you.”
    â€œThey’ll be all right after this,” said Peter Piper. “There’s nothing cures scarlet fever like cheering up. Let’s all join hands and dance ’round and ’round once for them before we go back to bed. It’ll throw them into a nice light perspiration and they’ll drop off and sleep like tops.” And they did it, and before they had finished,