Understood Betsy | Page 5

waiting for his verdict--and then he drew a long breath, shut his
lips and his little black case very tightly, and did not go on to say what
it was that Elizabeth Ann needed.
Of course Aunt Frances didn't let him off as easily as that, you may be
sure. She fluttered around him as he tried to go, and she said all sorts of
fluttery things to him, like "But, Doctor, she hasn't gained a pound in
three months ... and her sleep ... and her appetite ... and her nerves ..."
[Illustration: Elizabeth Ann stood up before the doctor.]
The doctor said back to her, as he put on his hat, all the things doctors
always say under such conditions: "More beefsteak ... plenty of fresh
air ... more sleep ... SHE'll be all right ..." but his voice did not sound as
though he thought what he was saying amounted to much. Nor did
Elizabeth Ann. She had hoped for some spectacular red pills to be taken
every half-hour, like those Grace's doctor gave her whenever she felt

low in her mind.
And just then something happened which changed Elizabeth Ann's life
forever and ever. It was a very small thing, too. Aunt Harriet coughed.
Elizabeth Ann did not think it at all a bad-sounding cough in
comparison with Grace's hollow whoop; Aunt Harriet had been
coughing like that ever since the cold weather set in, for three or four
months now, and nobody had thought anything of it, because they were
all so much occupied in taking care of the sensitive, nervous little girl
who needed so much care.
And yet, at the sound of that little discreet cough behind Aunt Harriet's
hand, the doctor whirled around and fixed his sharp eyes on her, with
all the bored, impatient look gone, the first time Elizabeth Ann had ever
seen him look interested. "What's that? What's that?" he said, going
over quickly to Aunt Harriet. He snatched out of his little bag a shiny
thing with two rubber tubes attached, and he put the ends of the tubes
in his ears and the shiny thing up against Aunt Harriet, who was saying,
"It's nothing, Doctor ... a little teasing cough I've had this winter. And I
meant to tell you, too, but I forgot it, that that sore spot on my lungs
doesn't go away as it ought to."
The doctor motioned her very impolitely to stop talking, and listened
very hard through his little tubes. Then he turned around and looked at
Aunt Frances as though he were angry at her. He said, "Take the child
away and then come back here yourself."
And that was almost all that Elizabeth Ann ever knew of the forces
which swept her away from the life which had always gone on,
revolving about her small person, exactly the same ever since she could
remember.
You have heard so much about tears in the account of Elizabeth Ann's
life so far that I won't tell you much about the few days which followed,
as the family talked over and hurriedly prepared to obey the doctor's
verdict, which was that Aunt Harriet was very, very sick and must go
away at once to a warm climate, and Aunt Frances must go, too, but not
Elizabeth Ann, for Aunt Frances would need to give all her time to

taking care of Aunt Harriet. And anyhow the doctor didn't think it best,
either for Aunt Harriet or for Elizabeth Ann, to have them in the same
house.
Grace couldn't go of course, but to everybody's surprise she said she
didn't mind, because she had a bachelor brother, who kept a grocery
store, who had been wanting her for years to go and keep house for him.
She said she had stayed on just out of conscientiousness because she
knew Aunt Harriet couldn't get along without her! And if you notice,
that's the way things often happen to very, very conscientious people.
Elizabeth Ann, however, had no grocer brother. She had, it is true, a
great many relatives, and of course it was settled she should go to some
of them till Aunt Frances could take her back. For the time being, just
now, while everything was so distracted and confused, she was to go to
stay with the Lathrop cousins, who lived in the same city, although it
was very evident that the Lathrops were not perfectly crazy with delight
over the prospect.
Still, something had to be done at once, and Aunt Frances was so
frantic with the packing up, and the moving men coming to take the
furniture to storage, and her anxiety over her mother--she had switched
to Aunt Harriet, you see, all the conscientiousness she had lavished on
Elizabeth Ann--nothing much