TOMMY had told Betty of a cross road which avoided Paulding and saved
half a mile. As soon as the girls were out of the dirty village and
facing home, Betty turned eagerly to Rose.
“How do you feel, Rose?” she asked anxiously.
“Slick!” returned the other promptly. “After I got over being scared
and got used to it, I sort of liked it. It was kind of soothing. But my
goodness! I was scared blue to take hold of those handles. I suppose I
couldn’t have let go if I had tried until he shut off the electricity.
And lightning is electricity, you know, and I kept remembering that was
what I had my hands on. Could you hear my heart beat?”
“No, Rose, I was scared myself. And anyhow, mine was beating so loud
I was ashamed. I was afraid Dr. Vandegrift would think I didn’t trust
him. Couldn’t you hear it?”
“Nix.” And Rose laughed gaily.
“I kept thinking of Tommy,” observed Betty rather mournfully. “Wouldn’t
it all have interested him--reversing the handles for the left eye, and
all that?”
“Yes, and about taking so much liquid--fluid I mean--for me, and--O,
Betty, I am so happy now that I shall probably just _bust_ when I am
cured, and what then?” Rose rattled on excitedly.
“It’s a good long time to wait. I feel now as if I should be just as
excited and happy as I am now all the six months, and as if I wanted
to be just awfully good to everybody--even Aunt Sarah. But it’s harder
for you to wait so long. I hope you can keep up your spirits, though,”
Betty returned wistfully.
“O, Betty darling, don’t worry about my spirits. I don’t mind waiting
one mite. It’s not so bad, you know, being blind. It’s really sort of
fun when one has such a chum as you. And the thing I am most anxious to
see is you in sailor-suits with your hair down your back. And yet, I
can imagine even that, for you _sound_ so young and limber now--and so
pretty!”
Betty laughed. And somehow Rose knew in her heart how prettily she
flushed, too.
“It’s dear of you to say that, Rose,” she murmured, squeezing her
arm. “Well, we must be just tremendously careful not to miss a single
Wednesday, mustn’t we?”
“Sure. Only, Betty, however _can_ we be perfectly sure of coming every
week if Mr. Appleton won’t let us off without an excuse? Would you dare
ask mama to write one?”
“O no, not for the world!” cried Betty. “That would be breaking our
word to Dr. Vandegrift, I’m afraid. But we’ve got to go every week and
we just will. I don’t see just how we will manage at this minute: but
there isn’t any question, of course, Rose, when it means getting back
your sight. And we’ve got to be awfully careful not to do anything Dr.
Vandegrift wouldn’t approve of or he’ll get mad and have nothing more
to do with us. Geniuses are so very apt to be like that, you know.”
They turned into the highway that ran through South Paulding and were
on familiar ground. But it seemed unfamiliar without Tommy.
“Don’t you think anything more about our getting there, Rose darling,”
Betty admonished her. “You keep just as calm and happy as you can so
as not to retard the cure, and I’ll think up a plan. Dear me! if only
I could get Tommy to help. He’s so clever. I don’t know whether it was
because he was so quick-witted that he took to magic, or whether it was
that that made him so unusually clever; but he always knows just what
to do. He’s really a wizard already. And he would be so interested,
scientifically as well as other ways, and--well, when you think that
he was the one that found out about Dr. Vandegrift, it certainly seems
cruel.”
“Yes. And yet hasn’t he been dear about it?” Rose cried. “A girl would
be miffed and wouldn’t ever slide on our cellar-door any more, but
Tommy’s the same old trump.”
“There he is now, waiting for us!” cried Betty. And truly there he was,
waiting to accompany them home as usual.