Heart of Gold | Page 8

and went on his professional calls.
"She is doing nicely?" the worried President asked him anxiously two
weeks after the accident.
"Splendidly!" the doctor answered with his bluff heartiness. "Far better
than I had dared hope. If she continues to improve as rapidly as she has
been doing, we will have her on her feet again in a month or two."
"A month or two!" gasped Peace, when Allee, who had chanced to
overhear the old physician's words, repeated them to the restless invalid.
"Why, I 'xpected he'd let me up next week anyway!"

"The back is a very delicate organism," quoted Cherry grandly, always
ready to display her small store of knowledge, though she really meant
to bring comfort to this dismayed sister. "When it is once injured, it
requires a long time to grow strong again. Wouldn't you rather spend
two or three months in bed than to hobble about on crutches all the rest
of your life?"
"Yes, of course, but--"
"Well, Doctor thought at first that you would never be able to walk
without 'em." Now that Peace seemed well on the road to recovery, the
secret fear which had haunted the household ever since the night of the
accident took shape in words, and for the first time the invalid learned
what a fate had been prophesied for her.
"Without crutches?" she half whispered.
"Yes."
Peace lay silent for a long moment while the awfulness of those words
burned themselves into her brain. Then with a shudder she said aloud,
"That's a mighty big thankful, ain't it?--To think I don't have to limp
along with crutches! But, oh dear, two months in bed is such a long
time to wait! Whatever will I do with myself? My feet are just itching
to wiggle. I've been here two weeks now, and it seems two years. Two
months means eight whole weeks!"
The voice rose to a tragic wail, and Grandma Campbell, hearing the
commotion, hurried across the hall to discover the cause. She glanced
reprovingly at the two culprits when the tale of woe had been poured
into her ears with fresh laments from the small victims; but instead of
scolding, as remorseful Cherry and Allee expected her to do, she smiled
sympathetically, even cheerfully at the tragic face on the pillow, and
asked, "Supposing you were a little tenement-house girl, cooped up in a
tiny, stifling kitchen, with the steamy smell of hot soapsuds always in
the air, and you had to lie all day, week in and week out, with not a
book nor a toy to help while away the long hours. With not even a
glimpse of the world outside to make you forget for a time the cruelly

aching back--"
"O, Grandma, not really?" interrupted Peace, for something in the
sound of the gentle voice told her that this was no imaginary picture
which was being drawn. "Is there such a little girl?"
The white head nodded soberly.
"Isn't there even any sunshine there?" The brown eyes glanced
wistfully out of the window, beside which the swan bed had been
drawn, and gloated in the beautiful April sunlight which was already
coaxing the grass into its brilliant green dress.
"Not a gleam," answered the woman sadly. "The buildings are jammed
so closely together, and the windows are so small that not a ray of
sunlight can penetrate a quarter part of the musty, dingy little rooms."
"Is that here--in Martindale?" inquired Cherry in shocked tones.
"Yes, on the North Side."
"What is the little girl's name?" asked Allee, awed into whispers by this
sad recital.
"Sadie Wenzell."
"How old is she?" was the next question.
"Just the age of Peace."
"O, a little girl!" exclaimed Cherry. "Will she ever get well again?"
The sweet-faced woman hesitated an instant. How could she tell the
eager listeners that long neglect had made poor Sadie's case well-nigh
hopeless? Then she answered slowly, "We are giving her every
possible chance now, dearies. The Aid Society found her by accident,
and got her into the Children's Ward of the City Hospital. She cried
with happiness because the bed was so soft and white and clean; and
when the nurse carries up her breakfast or dinner, it is hard to persuade

the little thing to eat,--she is so charmed with the dainty appearance of
the tray."
"Oh-h!" whispered the three voices in awed chorus.
"Didn't she have anything to eat in her own house?" ventured Allee.
"Nothing but dry bread and greasy soup all the five years she has laid
there--"
"Five years!" repeated Peace in horrified accents. "Without any
sunshine and green grass and flowers! O, I sh'd think she'd have died
before this! Didn't she ever go to school and play with other children?"
"Before she fell from