Free Magic for Marigold by L. M. Montgomery Page B

did.
    â€œThere’s nobody here who loves me,” she thought passionately.
    The black endless hours dragged on. They really were hours, though to Marigold they seemed like centuries. It must surely be nearly morning.
    How the wind was wailing round the house! Marigold loved the wind at home, especially at this time of the year when it made her cozy little bed seem cozier. But was this some terrible wind that Lazarre called “de ghos’ wind”?
    â€œIt blows at de tam of de year when de dead peop’ get out of dare grave for a lil’ while,” he told her.
    Was this the time of year? And that man-hole she had seen in the ceiling before Aunt Flora took the light out? Lazarre had told her a dreadful story about seeing a horrible face “wit long hairy ear” looking down at him from a man-hole.
    There was a closet in the room. Was that the closet where the skeleton was? Suppose the door opened and it fell out. Or walked out. Suppose its bones rattled—Uncle Paul said they did sometimes. What was it she had heard about Uncle Paul keeping a pet rat in the barn? Suppose he brought it into the house at night! Suppose it wandered about! Wasn’t that a rat gnawing somewhere?
    Would she ever see home again? Suppose mother died before morning. Suppose it rained—rained for a week—and they wouldn’t take her home. She knew how Aunt Flora hated to get mud on the new car. And wasn’t that thunder?
    It was only wagons rumbling across the long bridge over the East River below the house, but Marigold did not know that. She did know she was going to scream—she knew she couldn’t live another minute in that strange bed in that dark, haunted room. What was that? Queer scratches on the window. Oh—Lazarre’s story of the devil coming to carry off a bad child and scratching on the window to get in. Because she hadn’t said her prayers. Marigold hadn’t said hers. She had been too homesick and miserable to think of them. She couldn’t say them now—but she could sit up in bed and scream like a thing demented. And she did.
    4
    Uncle Paul and Aunt Flora, wakened out of their first sound sleep after a hard day’s work, came running in. Marigold stopped screaming when she saw them.
    â€œThe child’s trembling—she must be cold,” said Uncle Paul.
    â€œI’m not cold,” said Marigold through her chattering teeth, “but I must go home.”
    â€œNow, Marigold, you must be a reasonable little girl,” soothed Aunt Flora firmly. “It’s eleven o’clock. You can’t get home tonight. Would you like some raisins?”
    â€œI want to go home,” repeated Marigold.
    â€œWho’s raising the Old Harry here?” said Frank, coming in. He had heard Marigold’s shrieks when he was getting ready for bed. “Here, sis, is a chocolate mouse for you. Eat it and shut your little trap.”
    It was a lovely, brown chocolate mouse with soft, creamy insides—the kind of confection the soul of the normal Marigold loved. But now it only suggested Uncle Paul’s mythical rat.
    â€œI don’t want it—I want to go home.”
    â€œPerhaps if you bring her up a kitten,” suggested Uncle Paul in desperation.
    â€œI don’t want a kitten,” wailed Marigold. “I want to go home.”
    â€œI’ll give you my colored egg-dish if you’ll stay quietly till morning,” implored Aunt Flora, casting firmness to the winds.
    â€œI don’t want the colored egg-dish. I want to go home.”
    â€œWell, go,” said Uncle Paul, finally losing his patience with this exasperating child. “There’s plenty of good road.”
    But Aunt Flora had realized that Marigold was on the verge of hysterics, and to have a hysterical child on her hands was a prospect that made even her firmness quail. She had never approved of Paul’s whim of bringing the child here anyhow.