Chapter 27

The autumn sun struggled palely through the windows of the Children’s Hospital, and sent a beam across the high narrow bed where Chick Flathers lay, suspiciously watching the proceedings of the attendant nurses. He was not at all sure that he had done right in coming. For two days he had been made to stay in bed, and this morning he had suffered his third bath and been deprived of his breakfast. His being there at all was merely a concession to friendship. Mis’ Queerington had persuaded him. He wouldn’t have come for the Other One, the fat one who smiled and talked about The Willows Awful Home. He wouldn’t even come for Aunt ‘Telia, but Mis’ Queerington was different; she understood fellows. She had said that the doctors would fix his throat so that he could yell louder than any boy on Billy-goat Hill! All the suppressed yells of a dozen years quivered on his lips at the thought of it! “Chick, here’s a orange and some cookies I brought you.” It was Aunt ‘Telia who sat down by the bed and took his hand. “If you ever get well Aunt ‘Tella’s going to take you to the circus, or the seashore, or somewheres.”

The seashore presented no concrete idea, so Chick preferred to dwell upon the circus, but even that alluring prospect could not hold his attention while so many disturbing things were taking place about him. One nurse had felt his pulse, another had put a glass tube in his mouth, and now a third was wheeling in a curious little bed on wheels.

He turned restlessly from the black-browed, anxious face bending over him to the door where Mrs. Queerington was entering. But he knew by experience that it would be some time before she reached him. All those other sick duffers would want her to talk to them, and the nurses would stop her, and the young house-doctor would claim a flower for his buttonhole. Chick hated them all indiscriminately. It seemed an hour before her bright, reassuring face bent over him, and he heard her say:

“It won’t be long, now, Chicky Boy. Dr. Wyeth will be here soon, and they will give you a ride on this funny little wagon. I wonder what Skeeter Sheeley is doing about this time? Going to school, I expect.”

This diverted Chick marvelously. The thought of Skeeter having to spend the morning in the schoolroom, made his own lot less hard.

“Is Number Seventeen prepared for the operation?” he heard some one ask, and at the same moment Aunt ‘Tella’s fingers closed on his like a vise.

Then the big doctor, who had brought him there, appeared at the foot of his bed.

“Ah, Mrs. Queerington!” he was saying, “the very sight of you ought to hearten up these youngsters. But you are still paler than I like to see you. Been overdoing again?”

She shook her head. “I’m all right, but what about your patient?”