Running Around (and Such) by Linda Byler Read Free Book Online

scattered all over the floor.
    Dat cried out as he stooped to lift her, but he wasn’t able to pick her up because she was so limp. Her face was so pale, Lizzie couldn’t bear to look.
    “Emma open the windows,” Dat said.
    He rolled Mam over.
    “Lizzie, go get a pillow. Hurry up!”
    Lizzie dashed to the bedroom, her heart racing. Poor Mam! Poor, sick Mam who just went on and on, feeling horrible all week. She grabbed a pillow off of her bed and ran back downstairs.
    Dat lifted Mam’s head and gently placed the pillow underneath it. Lizzie was terribly alarmed to see how Mam’s head rolled around on her shoulders, just like a rag doll’s. Dat stood up and held a clean washcloth under the cold water faucet. After he wrung it out, he knelt to bathe Mam’s face.
    Mam’s head rolled to the side, and she moaned as her eyes fluttered open.
    “Annie!” Dat touched her face. “Annie!”
    Mam’s eyes blinked, and she struggled to focus.
    “Ach, my,” she whispered weakly.
    “Annie, you’ll be all right. You fainted,” Dat said tenderly, as he kept stroking her forehead with the cool washcloth.
    “Ach, my,” Mam said again.
    Dat was just helping her to a sitting position when the kitchen door banged shut.
    “Hey,” Mandy yelled.
    Lizzie hurried out. “Shh!”
    “What?”
    “Mam passed out on the bathroom floor!”
    Mandy clapped a hand to her mouth, her big green eyes opening wide. Hay was stuck in her hair, her face was grimy with dust, and she had torn a big hole in the sleeve of her dark purple dress.
    “What happened?”
    “Mandy, she’s terribly sick. She has to go to the hospital. Where were you?”
    “In the haymow. Hey, I found a bunch of kittens. You know all those wild cats around here that have no tails? There’s a whole nest full of kittens and not one has a tail!” Mandy was so excited, the veins in her neck stuck out like cords.
    “Shh! Mandy, calm down! Mam’s sick.”
    “I know. Are they … is she … how are they going to the hospital?” Mandy asked as she made her way to the bathroom door.
    Dat was helping Mam to her feet as Emma hovered nearby, picking up the pillow and comforting the twins who were crying.
    Mam sank wearily onto the sofa, just as they heard the crunch of tires in the driveway.
    “Your driver’s here,” Lizzie announced.
    Dat helped Mam back to her feet while Emma hurried over with her black Sunday apron.
    “Your apron, Mam.”
    Mam could not answer. Her mouth was pressed into a straight, thin line as she used all of her concentration to stay on her feet. Dat shook his head at Emma as they slowly made their way across the kitchen, through the door, and into the waiting car. This was the first time Lizzie ever saw Mam go away without her black apron, but she supposed it was all right to do since Mam was so sick.
    As Mam and Dat got into the car, the twins started crying uncontrollably. Susan wailed steadily, and no one was able to console her. KatieAnn finally sat in her little chair with great sad eyes and sniffled, her teddy bear clutched to her chest.
    Emma reached down and scooped up Susan, holding her close until her wails at last subsided.
    “Poor little things, Emma,” Lizzie said over the top of KatieAnn’s dark head.
    “I know,” Emma agreed. “We just moved from the only home they’ve ever known, and now Mam leaves them like this.”
    “Let’s rock them on the porch swing,” Lizzie suggested.
    They took both little girls and held them, gently rocking the old wooden porch swing in the warm spring sunshine. Jason sat on the steps, his curls lifting and falling as the breeze played with his hair. Mandy found a flashlight and ran across the yard to the barn, returning to her newly found nest of baby kittens.

Chapter 9

    E MMA STARTED HUMMING AS she rocked back and forth on the swing. Here they were, way back in the sticks, or so it seemed to Lizzie, the twins crying, Mam sick, Dat on the way to hospital with her, everything frightening and