Heart of Gold | Page 7

could hear, she added, "The physician is afraid that her spine is injured."
"Oh!" cried Miss Phelps, too shocked for further words.
"It is too bad such a thing should happen to her," continued Miss Lisk sadly. "She is such a lovable child, the life of her home."
Had anyone paid such a tribute to the lively Peace on the previous day, her teacher would merely have raised her eyebrows doubtfully; but with the memory of that flushed, joyous face still so vividly before her, and with the sound of the eager, childish prattle still ringing in her ears, she nodded her head in assent, and turned back to the day's duties with a heaviness of heart that was overwhelming. With that restless, active figure gone from its accustomed corner, the sun seemed to have set in mid-day and left the whole world in darkness.
CHAPTER II
THE SCRAP-BOOK BRIGADE
When Peace awoke to her surroundings again, she was lying in the gorgeously draped bed of the Flag Room with old Dr. Coates bending over her, and she startled the worthy gentleman by asking in sprightly tones, "Well, Doctor, how are you? It's been a long time since you've been to call on me, isn't it? Do you think I have cracked a rib?"
"No, little girl," he answered soberly, but his wrinkled old face brightened visibly at the sound of her cheery voice. "I think you have put a kink in your back."
"Will it be all right soon?"
"We hope so, curly pate."
"By tomorrow?"
"O, dear, no! Not for--days." He could not bring himself to tell her that it might be weeks before he could even determine how badly the little back was hurt.
"Mercy!" she wailed in consternation, for bed held no charms for that active body. "And must I stay in bed all that while?"
"My dear child," he answered gravely, "do you realize that you are the luckiest girl in seven counties tonight?"
"How?" she asked curiously, forgetting her lament in her wonder at his words.
"It's a miracle that you were not killed outright."
"Well, Johnny dared me."
"And you couldn't pass up a dare?"
She shook her head.
"Well, now my girlie must take her medicine."
Peace looked startled. "I didn't 'xpect to fall," she murmured, and two tears glistened in her big brown eyes.
The doctor relented. "There, there, little one," he comforted, "don't feel badly. We'll soon have you up and about--perhaps," he added under his breath.
So he left her smiling and cheerful, but his own heart was heavy as he descended the stairs after the long examination was ended, a pall of anxiety hung over the whole household when the door closed behind his broad back. Peace crippled perhaps for life, perhaps never to walk without crutches again! It was too dreadful to be true. Peace,--their gay little butterfly! Peace, whose feet seemed like wings! They never walked, but danced along with the lightness of a fairy, tripping, flitting, never still. What a calamity!
"But Dr. Coates says it is too soon to know for certain yet," Hope reminded them, trying to find a ray of encouragement to cheer the anxious household, and they seized upon that straw with desperation, gradually taking heart once more, and trying to shake off the dreadful fear that Peace would never romp or dance about the house again.
And it really seemed as if the white-haired physician's fears were groundless; for after the first few days when the slightest touch made the little sufferer whimper with pain, she seemed to get better. The soreness wore away, the drawn lines around the mouth smoothed themselves out, the rosy color came back to the round cheeks and the sound of the well-known laughter floated from room to room. Peace was undoubtedly better, and even Dr. Coates forgot to look grave as he came 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