Hello.
Welcome to Sleep Stories with Steph.
A romantic bedtime podcast guaranteed to help you drift off into a calm relaxing sleep.
Come with me as we go back in time to visit Katie Carr.
She is all grown up now but she still has the same trials and tribulations she had as a child.
But before we begin let's take the time to focus on where we are now.
Take a deep breath in through your nose.
Take a deep breath in through your nose.
That's it.
Then let it out on a long sigh.
It is time to relax and really let go.
Feel yourself sink into the support beneath you.
And let the pressures of the day seep away.
Happy listening.
What Katie Did Next by Susan Coolidge Read and abridged by Stephanie Poppins Chapter One An Unexpected Guest The September sun was glinting cheerfully into a pretty bedroom furnished with blue.
It danced on the glossy hair and bright eyes of two girls who sat together hemming ruffles for a white muslin dress.
The half-finished skirt of the dress lay on the bed and as each crisp ruffle was completed the girls added it to the snowy heap which looked like a drift of transparent clouds or a pile of foamy white of egg beaten stiff enough to stand alone.
These girls were Clover and Elsie Carr and it was Clover's first evening dress for which they were hemming ruffles.
It was more than three years since Clover and Katie had returned home from the boarding school at Hillshover.
Clover was now 18.
She was a very small Clover still but it would have been hard to find anywhere a prettier little maiden than she had grown to be.
Her skin was so exquisitely fair that her arms and wrists and shoulders which were round and dimpled like a baby's seemed cut out of daisies or white rose leaves.
Her thick brown hair waved and coiled gracefully above her head.
Her smile was particularly sweet and her eyes,
Always Clover's chief beauty,
Still had that pathetic smile.
Still had that pathetic look which made them irresistible to tender-hearted people.
Elsie,
Who adored Clover,
Considered her as beautiful as girls in books and was proud to be permitted to hem ruffles for the dress in which she was to burst upon the world.
Though as for that,
Not much bursting was possible in Burnett where tea parties of a middle-aged description and every now and then a mild little dance represented gaiety and society.
Girls came out very much as the sun comes out in the morning by slow degrees and gradual approaches with no particular one moment which could be fixed upon as having been the crisis of the joyful event.
There,
Said Elsie,
Taking another ruffle to the pile on the bed,
There's the fifth done.
It's going to be ever so pretty,
I think.
I'm glad you had it all white.
It's a great deal nicer.
Ceci wanted me to have a blue bodice and sash,
Said Clover,
But I wouldn't.
Then she tried to persuade me to get a long spray of pink roses for the skirt.
I'm so glad you didn't.
Ceci was always crazy about pink roses.
Only wonder she didn't wear them when she was married.
Yes,
The excellent Ceci who at 13 had announced her intention to devote her whole life to teaching Sunday school,
Visiting the poor and setting a good example to her more worldly contemporaries had actually forgotten these fine resolutions and before she was 20 had become the wife of Sylvester Slack,
A young lawyer in a neighbouring town.
Ceci's wedding and wedding clothes and her house furnishing had been the great excitement of the preceding year in Burnett and a fresh excitement had come since in the shape of Ceci's baby,
Now about two months old and named Catherine Clover after her two friends.
This made it natural that Ceci and her affair should still be of interest in the Carr household and Johnny at the time we write of was making her a week's visit.
She was rather wedded to them,
Went on Clover pursuing the subject of the pink roses.
She was almost vexed when I wouldn't buy the spray but it cost lots and I didn't want it in the least so I stood firm.
Besides,
I always said my first party dress should be in plain white.
Girls in novels always wear white to their first balls and fresh flowers are a great deal prettier anyway than artificial.
Katie says she'll give me some violets to wear.
Oh will she?
That'll be lovely,
Cried the adoring Elsie.
Violets look just like you somehow.
Oh Clover,
What sort of dress do you think I'll have when I grow up and go to parties and things?
Won't it be awfully interesting when you and I go out to choose it?
Just then the noise of someone running upstairs quickly made the sisters look up from their work.
Footsteps are very significant at times and these footsteps suggested haste and excitement.
Another moment,
The door opened and Katie dashed in calling out,
Papa!
Elsie,
Clover,
Where's Papa?
He went over the river to see that son of Mr White's who broke his leg.
Why,
What's the matter?
Asked Clover.
Is somebody hurt?
Inquired Elsie,
Startled at Katie's agitated looks.
No,
Not hurt,
But poor Mrs Ash is in such trouble.
Mrs Ash,
It should be explained,
Was a widow who had come to Burnet some months previously and taken a pleasant house not far from the Carr's house.
She was a pretty ladylike woman with a particularly graceful appealing manner and very fond of her one child,
A little girl.
Katie and Papa both took a fancy to her at once and the families grew neighbourly and intimate in a short time,
As people occasionally do when circumstances are favourable.
I'll tell you about it in a minute,
Went on Katie,
But first I must find Alexander and tell him to go and meet Papa and beg him to hurry home.
She went to the head of the stairs as she spoke and called,
Debbie,
Debbie,
Debbie answered.
Katie gave her direction and then came back again to the room where the other two were sitting.
Now,
She said,
Speaking more collectively,
I must explain as fast as I can for I've got to go back.
You know that Mrs Ash's little nephew's here for a visit,
Don't you?
Yes,
He came on Saturday.
Well,
He was ailing all day yesterday and today he's worse and she's afraid it's scarlet fever.
Luckily,
Amy was spending the day with the Uppams yesterday,
So she scarcely saw the boy at all.
And as soon as her mother became alarmed,
She sent her out to the garden to play and hasn't let her come indoors since,
So she can't have been exposed to any particular danger yet.
I went by the house on my way down the street.
There sat the poor little thing all alone in the arbour with her dolly in her lap,
Looking so disconsolate.
I spoke to her over the fence and Mrs Ash heard my voice and opened the upstairs window and called to me.
She said Amy has never had the fever and the very idea of her having it frightened her to death.
She's such a delicate child,
You know.
Oh,
Poor Mrs Ash,
Cried Clover.
I'm so sorry for her.
I'm so sorry for her.
Well,
Katie,
What did you do?
I hope I didn't do wrong,
But I offered to bring Amy here.
Papa won't object,
I'm sure.
Why,
Of course he won't.
I'm going back now to fetch Amy.
Mrs Ash is to let Ellen,
Who hasn't been in the room with the little boy,
Pack a bag full of clothes and put it out on the steps and I'll send Alexander for it by and by.
You can't think how troubled poor Mrs Ash was.
She couldn't help crying when she said that Amy was all she had left in the world and I nearly cried too.
I was so sorry for her.
She was so relieved when I said we'd take Amy.
You know,
She has a great deal of confidence in Papa.
Yes,
And in you too.
Where will you put Amy to sleep,
Katie?
Said Clover.
I think she'd better come in here with you and go into Dory's room.
She's used to sleeping with her mother.
She'd be lonely if she was left to herself.
Perhaps that will be better,
Said Katie.
Only it's a great deal bother for you,
Clovey dear.
I don't mind,
Responded Clover cheerfully.
I'd rather like to change about and try a new room once I'm back.
I'd rather like to change about and try a new room once in a while.
It's as good as going on a journey,
Almost.
Then she pushed aside the half-finished dress,
Opened a drawer and took out its contents,
Then began to carry them across the entry to Dory's room,
Doing everything with the orderly deliberation that was characteristic of whatever Clover did.
Her preparations were almost complete before Katie returned,
Bringing with her little Amy Ash.
Amy was a tall child of eight with a frank,
Happy face and long,
Light hair hanging down her back.
She looked just like the pictures of Alice in Wonderland,
But just at that moment it was a very woeful little Alice indeed she represented,
For her cheeks were stained with tears and her eyes swollen with crying.
Why,
What's the matter?
Cried kind little Clover,
Taking Amy in her arms and giving her a hug.
Mama didn't kiss me goodbye,
Sobbed the little girl.
She didn't come downstairs at all.
She put her head out of the window and said goodbye.
Amy,
Be good.
Don't make this car any trouble.
Then she went.
I never went anywhere before without kissing Mama goodbye.
Mama was afraid to kiss you for the fear she might give you the fever,
Explained Katie,
Taking her turn as comforter.
It wasn't because she forgot.
She felt worse about it than you did,
I imagine.
You know,
The thing she cares for most is that you shall not be ill as your cousin Walter is.
She'd rather do anything to have that happen.
As soon as he gets well,
She'll kiss you goodbye.
Well,
She'll kiss you dozens of times.
You see if she doesn't.
Meanwhile,
She says in this note,
You must write her a little letter every day and you'll hang a basket by a string out of the window and you and I will go down and drop the letters into it.
That'll be funny,
Won't it?
We'll play that you're my little girl and you shall have a real Mama and a make-believe Mama.
Shall I sleep with you?
Demanded Amy.
Yes,
In that bed over there,
Said Katie.
It's a very pretty bed,
Announced Amy after examining it gravely for a moment.
Will you tell me a story every morning?
If you don't wake me up too early,
Said Katie,
My stories are always sleepy until seven o'clock.
Let us see what Ellen's packed in that bag and then I'll give you some drawers of your own and we'll put your things away.
The bag was full of neat little frocks and underclothes stuffed hastily in all together.
Katie took them out,
Smoothing the folds and crimping the tumbled ruffles with her fingers.
As she lifted the last skirt,
Amy,
With a cry of joy,
Pounced on something that lay beneath it.
It's Maria Matilda,
She said.
I'm glad of that.
I thought Ellen would forget her and the poor child wouldn't know what to do without me.
She was having the measles on the back shelf of the closet,
You know,
Nobody would have heard her if she cried ever so loud.
What a pretty face she has,
Said Katie,
Taking the doll out of Amy's hands.
Yes,
But not so pretty as Mabel.
Miss Upham says Mabel's the prettiest child she ever saw.
Look,
Miss Clover.
Amy lifted the other doll from the table where she had it.
Hasn't she got sweet eyes?
She's older than Maria Matilda and she knows a great deal more.
She's begun on French verbs.
Not really,
Said Katie,
Which ones?
Oh,
Only j'aime,
Tu aimes,
Il aime,
You know,
The same that our class is learning at school.
She hasn't tried any but that.
Sometimes she's told me that sometimes she says it quite nicely,
But sometimes she's very stupid and I have to scold her.
By this time,
Amy had quite recovered her spirits.
It seemed to the cars after a few days as if they'd always had Amy in the house.
Papa's daily visit to the sick room,
Their avoidance of him till he had changed his coat,
Amy's lessons and games of play,
Her dressing and undressing.
The walks with the make-believe mama,
The dropping of notes into the little basket seemed part of a system of things which had been going on for a long,
Long time and which everybody should miss should they suddenly stop.
But they by no means suddenly stopped.
Little Walter Ash's case proved to be rather a severe one and after he'd begun to mend,
He caught cold somehow and was taken worse again.
There were some serious symptoms and for a few days Dr Carr did not feel sure how things would turn out.
He did not speak of his anxiety at home but he kept a silent and cheerful face as doctors know how to do.
Only Katie who was more intimate with her father than the rest guessed that things were going gravely at the other house and she was too well trained to ask questions.
The threatening symptoms passed off however and little Walter slowly got better but it was a long convalescence and Mrs Ash grew thin and pale before he began to look rosy.
There was no one on whom she could devolve the charge of the child.
His mother was dead.
His father,
An overworked businessman,
Had barely time to run up once a week to see about him.
There was no one at his home but a housekeeper whom Mrs Ash had not full confidence.
So the good aunt denied herself the sight of her own child and devoted her strength and time to Walter and nearly two months passed and still little Amy remained at Dr Carr's.
She was entirely happy there.
She'd grown very fond of Katie and was perfectly at home with the others.
Phil and Johnny who had returned from their visit to Cessie were by no means too old or proud to play fellows to a child of eight and with all the other members of the family Amy was a chosen pet.
Amy was a tractable child and intelligent beyond her age but she was never quite so good with anyone as she was with Katie.
She followed her about lavished upon her certain special words and caresses and would kneel on her lap patting Katie's shoulders with her soft hand and cooing up to her face like a happy dove.
Katie laughed at these demonstrations but they pleased her very much.
She loved to be loved as all affectionate people do but most of all to be loved by a child.
At last the long convalescence ended and Walter was carried away to his father with every possible precaution against the fatigue and exposure.
Plaster was scraped and painted wallpaper was torn down mattresses were made over and Mrs Ash's house came to welcome her little girl home again.
Amy was overjoyed at the prospect of seeing her mother but at the last moment she clung to Katie and cried as if her heart would break.
I want you too,
She said.
If Dr Carr would only let you come and live with me and Mama I should be so happy.
Nonsense,
Cried Clover lonely with Mama and those poor children of yours who've been wondering all these weeks what's become of you.
They'll want a great deal of attention at first I'm sure medicine and new clothes and whippings all manner of things.
You remember I promised to make a dress out of that blue and brown plaid like Johnny's Balmoral.
I'll make that for one of your dolls.
Oh will you,
Said Amy forgetting her grief that will be lovely.
The skirt needn't be very full you know.
And consoled by the prospect of this Amy departed quite cheerfully and Mrs Ash was spared the pain of seeing her only child in tears on the first evening of their reunion.
But Amy continued to talk so constantly of Katie and seemed to love her so much that it put a plan into Mrs Ash's heart which led to important results as the next chapter will show.
