Drift Off To Maida's Little House (Chapter 19 & 20)

Welcome back sleepy listeners,

To a relaxing evening here at Drift Off,

Where I whisk you away to the land of dreams with sleepy tales.

I'm your host Joanne,

And tonight we continue our journey with Meda,

As I read a few more chapters from Meda's Little House,

The second book from the beloved Meda series.

Now,

Let's take a moment together to unwind and settle into a state of relaxation.

Close your eyes.

Take a deep breath in,

And exhale slowly.

Feel the tension melting away from your body as you prepare to drift off into a world of wonder and imagination.

My friend,

Just relax and listen as we continue our journey once more into Meda's world,

Where every corner holds a new adventure,

And every page is filled with the promise of friendship.

And so,

Go ahead and snuggle up under those cozy blankets and enjoy the story.

Chapter 19,

Meda's Mood What are you so quiet about,

Meda?

Dickie asked at breakfast a few mornings later.

I don't think you've said a word since you've got up.

Haven't I?

Meda replied,

But she added nothing.

At first,

Because of the noise which prevailed at breakfast in the little house,

Nobody noticed Meda's continued silence.

Then finally,

Rosie Ryan made comment on it.

Sleepy head,

Sleepy head,

She teased.

Wake up and talk.

You're not in bed asleep,

You're sitting at the table.

Meda opened her lips to speak,

But closed them quickly,

On something which it was apparent she even repented thinking.

She shut her lips firmly and maintained her silence.

Sleepy head,

Sleepy head,

The little mimic Delia prattled.

Wake up and talk.

You're not in bed asleep,

You're sitting at the table.

Everybody laughed.

Everybody always laughed at Delia's strenuous efforts to produce as copious a stream of conversation as the grown-ups.

But Meda only bit her lips.

The talk drifted among the older children to plans for the day.

Perhaps you will give us your views,

Miss Westerbrook,

Laura said after some discussion,

With a touch of purely friendly sarcasm.

That is,

If you will condescend to talk with us.

Oh,

Can't I be quiet once in a while?

Meda exclaimed,

Pettishly,

Without everybody speaking of it.

She rose from the table.

I'm tired of talking.

She walked quickly out of the dining room and ran upstairs to her own chamber.

The children stared for a moment,

Petrified.

Why,

I never saw Meda cross before,

Rosie said in almost an odd tone.

I wonder what can be the matter?

I hope I didn't say anything.

No,

Of course you didn't,

Arthur answered.

Meda got out of the wrong side of her bed this morning,

That's all.

Well,

Laura concluded generously.

If anybody's got a right to be crossed once in a while,

It's Meda.

She's always so sweet.

After breakfast,

The children separated,

As was the custom of the little house,

To the early morning tasks.

But Rosie and Laura lingered about,

Talking in low tones,

Before one went to the library and the other into the living room to do her daily stint of dusting.

After this work was finished,

They proceeded to the garden and plucked flowers together.

It was phlox season,

And Laura cut great bunches of blossoms that ran all the shades from white to a deep magenta through pink,

Vermilion,

Lavender,

And purple blue.

Oh,

How lovely they look,

Laura exclaimed,

Baring her face in the delicately perfumed mass of phlox.

She put her harvest on a rock,

And helped Rosie with the more difficult work of gathering nasturtiums.

The vines and plants were now full of blossoms.

It was impossible to keep ahead of them.

They picked all they could.

I hope Meda isn't sick,

Laura said after a while.

I don't believe she is,

Rosie reassured her.

I wonder if we ought not to go up to her room,

Laura mused.

Let's.

Rosie reflected.

No,

I think we better wait until after we've come back from the errands.

Meda wants to be alone so seldom,

That I guess we'd better not interrupt her.

Besides,

I heard her slam her door hard and then lock it.

I guess that means she doesn't want anybody around for a time.

I guess it does too,

Laura agreed.

It isn't my turn to go to market,

But I'm going with you this morning,

Rosie.

It'll give Meda a chance to be alone for a while.

The little girls trundled their bicycles out of the barn,

Mounted them,

And speeded down the long trail which led to the road.

In the meantime,

Meda still remained in her room.

She made her bed with fierce determined motions,

As though it were work of destruction rather than construction.

She dusted her bureau with swift slapping strokes.

Then she sat down by the window.

Why was she cross?

She didn't know.

But undoubtedly,

She was cross.

She didn't want to go anywhere.

She didn't want to play games,

To see anybody,

Least of all to talk.

Why,

When ordinarily she was so sociable,

She should have this feeling,

She had no idea.

Nevertheless,

It was there.

From various directions,

Sound of voices came to her.

Rosie's and Laura's from the garden,

The boys from the barn,

The little children from House Rock.

Rosie and Laura were nearer,

But she could not hear what they were saying,

And of course she made no attempt to listen.

Later,

She heard them go around to the barn,

She knew they were off on the morning marketing.

Still,

Meda continued to sit listlessly,

Looking out of the window.

A long time seemed to go by.

Presently,

She heard in the distance,

The sound of Laura and Rosie returning.

They were evidently in a great state of excitement.

She could hear them chattering about something as they came up the trail to the house.

She did not feel like talking,

But she knew it was her duty to meet them,

To apologize for her rudeness,

To go on with the usual games of the day.

She caught the rattle with which the two girls put their bicycles in place,

Then their swift rush to the kitchen.

At the door,

She got in Rosie's high,

Excited tones.

Where's Meda,

Granny?

Still upstairs,

Granny answered.

I haven't heard her stir.

We've got something to tell her,

Rosie went on swiftly.

And the most dreadful thing has happened,

Laura put in simultaneously.

Then,

Talking together in phrases that broke one against the other or overlapped.

A dreadful accident.

Silva Burrell.

This morning.

She was on her bicycle.

Man just learning to run an automobile.

Knocked her off.

Picked up senseless.

It happened in front of Fa's dick house.

Took her in.

There now.

How is the poor child?

Meda heard Granny ask compassionately.

Nothing broken,

Laura answered eagerly.

But it was a long time before she came to.

She's not unconscious any longer,

Rosie concluded the story.

She's asleep,

But she moans and mutters all the time.

Meda listened horrified.

She felt that she ought to go downstairs and talk with the girls.

She felt that she ought to get on her bicycle,

Go at once to see Silva.

Apparently,

Mrs.

Doris had something to that effect,

For Rosie answered promptly.

Oh no,

Nobody's allowed to see her yet.

Somehow,

If she could not go to Silva,

Meda did not feel like talking.

Not yet at any rate.

Why not get away from the house until her strange mood passed?

Chapter 20.

Meda's Find Meda crept slowly out of her room,

Stole softly down the stairs,

Ran quietly to a side entrance,

Opened the screen door gently,

Closed it inaudibly,

Dashed down the trail to the magic mirror.

She arrived at the boathouse panting,

But she did not wait to recover her breath.

Quickly,

She unlocked the door and pulled out one of the canoes,

Leaped into it so swiftly that she almost upset it,

Paddled as rapidly as she could towards the center of the lake.

It was an unusually hot day,

And paddling was hot work.

The water looked tempting.

Meda battled with temptation,

Which she had never known before,

To jump overboard just as she was in her fresh clean dress and take a long swim.

But she knew that Granny Flynn would disapprove of this,

And she relinquished her project with a tired sigh.

She did not stop paddling until she reached the other side of the lake.

Then she drew the canoe in close to the under an overhanging tree,

Lay down in it,

And stared vacantly up at the sky.

I know what's the matter with me,

She thought suddenly.

I'm tired.

I didn't sleep well last night.

I had a dreadful dream.

Now what was that dream?

It was a nightmare really,

And it seemed to last so long.

What was it?

Oh,

What was it?

She groped in her memory in the way one does to remember a haunting but elusive dream.

It was like trying,

In pitch darkness,

To pick out one rag from scores of others in a rag bag.

Then suddenly,

A ray of light seemed to pierce that darkness,

And she put her hand on the right rag.

Very late,

Long after midnight indeed,

It seemed to her that somebody came into her room.

That she half-waked,

Spoke.

That somebody did not answer,

And she fell asleep again.

Yes,

She remembered now,

That that somebody seemed to come in through the window.

She fell asleep,

And yet not entirely asleep.

That somebody moved about the room,

Looked at everything.

That somebody stopped near the little hair cloth trunk which contained Lucy's clothes.

After a while,

That somebody went away through the window.

But all night long,

A sense of trouble and disturbance kept bringing Meda out of deep sleep to ruffled wakefulness,

Then sent her back into a heavy and fatiguing slumber.

Thinking this over,

And staring up at the blue sky,

Meda drifted off to sleep.

She woke.

It must have been nearly two hours later,

Perfectly refreshed.

But she did not go back immediately to the little house.

Instead,

The sight of a columbine in the woods made her determined to land.

She knew that Rosie particularly loved the columbines,

And pursuing half-absently the trail which went to the moraine,

She soon gathered a great armful.

Meda became so absorbed in this pleasant duty of reparation that she went further than she intended.

In fact,

It was with a real sense of surprise,

And a slight tingle of terror,

That suddenly,

She found herself at the approach to the moraine itself.

She had not been there since the extraordinary day of the picnic,

And although she had not let her mind dwell on the curious experience of that occasion,

She had by no means forgotten it.

For a moment,

She hesitated about going further,

And then she caught a glimpse,

Across the rust-brown pine-needle-covered expanse of a great clump of columbines faintly nodding their delicate heads.

Involuntarily,

Meda dashed across the moraine and picked them.

More appeared beyond.

She picked all these,

And then just beyond,

She caught sight of a tiny field of columbines.

Meda moved in their direction,

Plumped herself down in the midst of their beautiful living carpet.

It was cool there and quiet.

The pines held the sun out,

Although their needles were all filmed with iridescence,

But they let little glimpses of the sky through their branches.

Some strange wood insect burst into a long strident buzz.

Suddenly,

There came,

As though from the very ground under her feet,

A long wailing cry.

Meda turned white.

Her heart leaped so high that she felt with another such impulse it would break through her chest.

She jumped to her feet,

Still clutching her flowers,

Raced across the moraine into the path.

She had not gone very far before something stopped her.

Not an obstacle,

But a thought.

She had expected,

Remembering the day of the picnic,

That the voice would be joined by two others.

This did not happen.

That first voice maintained its eerie call.

The thought was,

That cry is not the cry of anything frightening like a goblin or a wild animal or a tramp.

It is the wail of a baby.

Meda stood for a moment just where she had stopped.

The cry began again.

Terror surged through Meda,

But she clenched her hands and made herself listen.

Yes,

That was what it was.

The wail of a baby.

Could it be some little baby animal crying for its mother?

A fawn like Betsy's or,

And here Meda's hair rose on her head again,

A baby bear?

Her common sense immediately rejected this theory.

There were no bears in the woods,

And if it were a baby deer,

She would be ashamed of being afraid of a baby deer when Betsy showed no fear.

For another interval,

She stood still fighting her cowardice.

Then suddenly,

She took her resolution in hand.

I'm going to find out what it is,

She said aloud.

Perhaps she was assisted in this by the cessation of the mysterious wail.

Only for a moment,

However.

Her resolution received another weakening blow by the sudden resumption of the uncanny noise.

But she did not actually stop.

She only faltered.

For the farther she walked across the moraine,

The more it sounded like the crying of,

Not a baby animal,

But a regular baby.

Suddenly,

All Meda's fear vanished forever.

I'm not afraid anymore,

She said to herself,

And she wasn't.

The hard thing was to discover where the cry came from.

It seemed under her feet.

She plunged here,

There,

Beyond,

Everywhere,

Looking up and down,

But finding nothing.

Then she began a more systematic search.

Starting with the very edge of the moraine,

She took every rock as it came along,

Searching around and over it.

Each clump of bushes,

Parted them and walked through them.

Still,

The cry kept up.

Occasionally,

She stopped to listen.

That baby's sick,

She said once,

And later,

I do believe it's hungry.

Ahead,

A big rock thrust out of the earth like an elephant sitting on its haunches.

At one side,

Two bushes grew at so acute an angle,

And with branches so thickly leaved,

That the great surface of the rock was concealed,

Made a part of them.

Underneath,

There was no rocky surface.

The bushes concealed a small,

Low opening to what looked like a cave.

Was it a cave?

Where did it lead?

How far?

Would,

And again,

Meda's heart spun with terror.

Would she confront an enraged mother bear if she entered it?

But these questions all died in Meda's mind,

For emerging undisputedly from the cave,

Came the fretful cry of a baby.

Without further question,

Meda dropped her hands and knees and crawled into the opening.

Crawled down,

Rather,

For the entrance sloped at first.

Then,

It began to grow level.

The crying grew louder.

It was a big cave.

The end was lost in shadow,

But in the light from the entrance,

Meda could see something lying,

Not far off,

On a heap of bedclothes.

As she looked,

A tiny hand came up and waved in the air.

Meda could not stand upright yet,

But she hurried over to that tiny hand.

She was beginning to get the glimmer of a little white face.

It was a baby.

The baby put up its hands to her.

Meda lifted it from the ground,

And made rapidly backwards to the cave opening.

It was a lovely baby,

Meda decided that at once.

A girl,

Getting towards a year old,

Brown complexioned,

With a thick shock of dark hair and big brown eyes.

For a moment,

It looked at Meda in surprise,

And even in baby distrust.

Then,

It began to cry.

Its open mouth displayed four little white teeth.

Meda put the baby down on the soft grass in the shade of some bushes.

She returned to the cave.

She found a candle there,

Some matches in an iron box.

She lighted the candle.

There was one pile of baby clothes,

Unironed,

Though perfectly clean,

But in tatters.

Beside them was another pile.

Somehow,

These seemed familiar.

Meda looked closely.

They were Lucy's clothes.

Then,

Lightnings poured through Meda's mind.

It was not a dream.

Somebody had come into her room,

Robbed her,

Robbed little Lucy.

But she must not think of that now,

With a crying,

Perhaps a starving baby on her hands.

Further back was a bundle of hay,

Pressed down as though somebody older slept there.

There was a little alcohol lamp and the materials for warming milk.

Milk bottles,

But no milk.

Meda returned to the baby,

Who had resumed its crying,

Took it into her lap,

Rocked it.

What should she do?

The baby must belong to somebody.

But where was that somebody?

It was hungry now.

She felt sure of that.

It seemed to her that she ought to take the baby home,

And yet suppose the parent should come back.

Then she would be in the position of stealing a baby.

What should she do?

She could not go off and leave it,

Nor could she stay indefinitely.

She had not even told them at the little house where she was going.

They would be worried about her.

They would think that,

Like Betsy,

She was lost.

Pretty soon they might send out searching parties.

How she regretted her pettishness of the morning.

And still,

If it had not been for that,

She would not have come here,

Would not have found the baby.

What should she do?

She put her hands over her eyes,

As though shutting out the sight of things made it easier to think.

Perhaps it did,

For suddenly it came to her that the first thing to consider was the baby.

Babies must not be neglected.

Babies must be fed.

It was a serious matter for them to go too long without their milk.

Suddenly,

She pulled her little red Morocco diary from her pocket,

Tore out a page.

With the little pencil that lay in the loop of the diary,

She wrote,

I have taken your baby to my home,

The little house.

It is at the end of the trail across the lake.

I was afraid you had deserted her,

And she would get sick and die.

I am sorry if you are worried,

But you can have your baby at once by claiming her.

A phrase slipped from she knew not where into her mind.

She concluded with it,

And proving property.

She signed her own name,

And under it wrote,

Daughter of Jerome Westenbrook.

Her mind made up,

Meda worked quickly.

Holding the baby in her arms,

She walked swiftly down the trail to the canoe.

Here,

A problem presented itself.

She could not hold the baby in her arms,

Nor could she let the hot sun of that hot August day pour on the little head.

After a great deal of difficulty,

And some maneuvering,

She managed to stand up some thickly-leaved branches so that they made a shade.

She placed the baby on one of the canoe cushions in its shadow,

And stepped into the canoe.

Never had Meda paddled so carefully or so well.

On the other side,

She tethered the canoe,

Lifted the baby out.

She had cried all the way across the lake,

And was still crying fitfully.

Somebody may come and break the canoe,

Meda surmised swiftly,

But I can't wait to put it away.

She hurried in the direction of the little house.

What a surprise I've got for them,

Her thoughts ran.

She was toiling along slowly now,

For by this time,

The baby had grown heavy as lead.

Meda had to stop many times to rest her arms.

Her back ached as though it would break.

They'll all want to keep this baby forever,

And I wish we could.

But the surprise was not all for the others,

Nor indeed much as compared with their surprise for Meda.

For as Meda neared the house,

Rosie came flying down the path.

Meda saw that her face was white,

And that great tears were pouring down her cheeks.

Oh,

Meda,

She sobbed.

Where have you been?

We've been looking for you everywhere.

A most terrible thing has happened.

For Mrs.

Dorr,

She burst for an instant into uncontrollable sobbing,

Then composed herself,

Fell down the cellar stairs and broke her leg.

We've had a baby.

In a cave,

Meda answered faintly.

Will you carry her,

Rosie?

I'm so tired.

Go on,

Quickly,

Tell me all about it.

Rosie took the baby into her expert arms,

Continued.

Well,

Arthur called up the Situate doctor,

And he came with an ambulance,

And they've taken her to the Situate Center Hospital.

Granny Flynn had to go with her.

And we're all alone.

We'll have to run the house ourselves until Granny can get back.

Poor Dickie feels dreadful,

And now we've got this baby on our hands.

Everything happens at once,

Doesn't it?

Gracious,

I'll have to give this poor little thing something to eat right off.

That's a hungry cry.

Sweet dreams,

My friend.

Sleep well.