Such a battery of eyes as was on the watch for the doctor’s visit the
next morning! Not one of the paupers could be persuaded to any work
that would take his individual pair out of range of the street; each
one had an excellent reason for choosing a station where he could shoot
a glance out of the window, or down the yard, and no very long interval
was allowed between the shots either. Mrs. Ganderby herself found it
highly important to keep in the front part of the house and just make
sure that Enoch was going on well with a bit of repair he had set
himself about on the doorstep. Creepy sat under the butternut-tree, and
the yellow leaves had fluttered down till they lay in a golden circle
around his queer little chair; the doorstep was mended, Mrs. Ganderby
could not find another spot out of order within reach of the front
windows; one after another the old clock in the hall had ticked away
the hours of the glistening October morning, and still no black horse
came dashing up before the door. “If I hadn’t seen the doctor with my
own eyes yesterday,” said Mrs. Ganderby, “I should say it was all a
light-headed notion of the poor crooked thing that he was here at all,
which he certainly was here, however; but what he had to say about
coming again is another question that will take care of itself before
the day is gone.”
[Illustration]
Greater and greater grew the wonder and suspense. Was the doctor coming
at all, and what was he going to do if he came? That was so far beyond
what they knew, that they set themselves to imagining, until if they
had seen him alight, one hand holding a terrible knife, with which to
remove the lame child’s poor twisted spine, and the other a big anvil
on which to hammer it straight again, they would not have been very
much more astonished. Could they believe their eyes and ears, when at
last, as the sun was getting round by the west, the ring of the horse’s
hoofs was heard, and almost before he was fairly reined up, the doctor
sprung out empty-handed, and was on the doorstep chatting with Mrs.
Ganderby as gayly as if nothing of any solemnity had ever happened in
the world, or was expected to happen while it should stand?
Sue crept round to the shadow of the jut where the old clock stood,
just to get an idea of what he was saying. Praising the matron’s bed of
nasturtiums which she had saved from the frost, and asking her what
receipt she used for pickling them! Dear, dear, but this was a strange
world! What had doctors to do with pickles? and how were they to notice
the taste of one thing from another, coming in to dinner as they did
with pockets full of poisons, and the cries of the sick and dying in
their ears? But hark! They had stopped talking about the nasturtiums.
“By the way, Mrs. Ganderby,” said the doctor, “that little fellow that
I was talking with yesterday, the lame child; it seems to me something
might be done for him, and I propose that we should try. It’s rather
dull music for a boy of his age; ten or twelve is he, Mrs. Ganderby?”
“Indeed, sir, the land knows as well as any of us do, how old the poor
crooked thing may be; you can judge better perhaps yourself, sir. But
whether it’s more or less, it seems a cruel thing and unnatural like,
to see him sit in that chair and let all the summer-days go by, and
know no more of what living is than some poor squirrel shut up in its
cage.”
“Precisely what I was going to say, Mrs. Ganderby, and though of course
it would be folly to talk of bringing everything right, in a case like
that, still I am sure we can do a great deal. I say ‘we,’ because I
shall have to depend a great deal on your kindness in making things go
as I wish.”
“Well certainly, sir,” said Mrs. Ganderby, stroking her apron and her
gratified pride at the same time; “if there should be anything in my
power, which I should have been the last one, however, to suppose a
poor drought-stricken little life like that could be brought to look up
much in this world.”
“I want him to have some pleasures,” said the doctor; “something for
those eyes to look at besides what they have dreamed over for a year.
Books, for instance. Perhaps there is not a great variety in the house?”
“Well, sir, as to that, you would hardly expect the number to be
great; but such as they are, I don’t at this moment remember just what
the poor crooked thing’s book learning may be, though I mind that I
sometimes used to see Ben and himself over a page together when Ben was
here. I should say he knew his letters at least.”
The doctor snapped one of Enoch’s doorstep splinters in two, and sent
it flying halfway up the horsechestnut-tree that stood a few paces off
the grand walk, and in another moment Sue had to dart from her retreat
in her corner, for Mrs. Ganderby was coming in, and the doctor was
already making a pathway through the yellow circle around Creepy’s
chair.
And in another half-hour he was gone, and what wonderful thing had
been done, so far as Creepy was concerned, no one could see; but for
the rest of the house, half the people in it had been set to work.
Mrs. Ganderby was bustling about, declaring she only hoped she might
have strength given her to carry on her mind all the ifs and ands,
and things to be done and undone, the doctor had laid out for her to
think of; and something had been slipped into Enoch’s hand, and thence
into his pocket, nobody knew what; but he had come in with great airs
of importance, and was telling every one how he was to go to the
wheelwright’s and get a pair of wheels to be fitted to Creepy’s chair,
and how he was to wheel him down the road every sunny day, and let
him see what lay beyond the turn, under the trees, or anywhere else
he might take a fancy to go. And Sue, who had once taught a district
school in the village where she was born, for a whole summer term, was
engaged to spend half an hour every afternoon, in leading Creepy out
among the mysteries of an arithmetic, slate, and pencil, that were to
be sent to him the next day.
It was well for Creepy that he did not hear all this for an hour or
more after the doctor went away, for he had excitement enough in
his own part of the visit, and yet they had seemed to be having the
quietest talk in the world, for the most part.
“So they got a big basket of nuts yesterday, did they?” the doctor
asked carelessly as he sat down. “Well, that is good sport, but nothing
to compare with trouting. Now, when you and I go trouting, some
day--well, you’ll see how it all is. The nuts don’t try to get away
from you and the trout do--that is one difference; but the fact is,
it’s such very great sport, there’s no use in trying to describe it,
though there have been books written about trouting. Did you ever see
one?”
“No,” said Creepy with great wondering eyes.
“Very likely, but you’ll come across them some day. In the meantime I
suppose you read what you like best, or do you take up whatever comes
in your way?”
“Nothing does come in my way,” said Creepy, “since Ben died. He only
had two books, but they gave them away to somebody, afterwards, and
that’s all there were in the house.”
“That was the whole library?” asked the doctor, with a smile Creepy did
not exactly understand.
“Yes, that was all, and there were pieces gone off from both of them,
but there was enough left for Ben to teach me.”
“So Ben taught you, did he?” said the doctor, having learned exactly
what he wished. “Ben was a rare fellow, to make schoolmaster and
gardener at once. Did he ever teach you, I wonder, how much flint there
is in a stalk of grass like this?” And he pulled one up, and began to
make mischief with the seeds again.
“Queer, isn’t it?” he went on, as Creepy only said “No,” with a still
more wondering look. “And there is still more in a stalk of wheat;
that is what makes it strong and straight, partly, and ought to make
you strong and straight too, when you eat it. By the way,” turning his
eyes suddenly upon the queer little jacket Mrs. Ganderby’s “wits and
patience” had “worried out,” “would you mind taking that jacket off one
moment, and letting me just pass my fingers up and down your back?”
Creepy’s hands trembled a little, but he got it off. He never liked to
have anything touch his back, it always hurt him so.
“There,” said the doctor; “now tell me, please, do you feel any pain
when I put my finger here?”
It was the gentlest and tenderest of touches, but it was hard for the
lame child to bear. He hesitated, but the doctor waited for an answer.
“Yes,” he said.
“Ah! and now here, please. Do you feel this same pain now?” as he
removed the touch to another point.
“Yes.”
“And here too?” moving it again.
“Yes.”
“Just as I thought. Now that’s all wrong. We must put a stop to that
somehow or other. I wonder if I can’t get this jacket on again without
as much trouble as it would give you?” and the doctor took up the
shapeless little thing as gently as Ben ever handled the choicest
hot-house plant. Creepy never could tell how it went on, only the wish
ran through his mind that the doctor would always do it for him. It was
so easy, and not a bit of the pain he always felt so long after he put
it on himself.
“Don’t you think that is a pretty horse of mine?” began the doctor,
sitting down again on Ben’s seat. “We must have a ride after him
together some day. Not just now, perhaps--it is going to be cold very
soon-but when the warm spring days come again, then we’ll try it. And
you’ll be having a good pull at your school-books in the meantime, I
suppose. Boys of your age are all busy with their arithmetics and ugly
things of that kind, eh?”
Creepy shook his head.
“All but me.”
“And why not you? Don’t you know every one has to serve his time with
these things, to get ready for other work by-and-by?”
“All but--”
“Tut!” said the doctor, getting up quickly and sending his last bunch
of grass stalks fluttering out on the wind. “Who taught you to say
that? Whoever it was made a great mistake, or wanted to cheat you out
of your rights, I don’t know which. The world was made for you, just as
much as for any one else, and you are to have your share, and find your
place in it with the rest. Will you remember that, my little man?” and
he stopped for a look in Creepy’s face.
He could not see that Creepy’s heart was throbbing his breath away with
all the watching and the wonder, and the thanks that had gathered up
there since morning, and with hearing such words spoken, although they
didn’t seem any more real than yesterday.
But he saw how it was swelling up the veins in his forehead, and
drooping the eyelids over the great eyes, and he did not wait for
an answer, but walked away and paced back and forth over the yellow
carpet. Then he sat down on the rustic seat again, and chatted as
he had the day before, of what lay out in the world, and along the
trout-stream; then he said Good-by, had his talk with Mrs. Ganderby,
found Enoch and Sue, and settled matters with them, and was off. And no
one suspected that he had been up and at work all the night before, and
had not been able to catch a moment from the duties of the day, until
just then, and that he still saw work ahead to stretch well on into the
night, before there was a chance of rest.
Hal Fenimore and Tom Haggarty had but just commenced their evening with
library fires crackling and companions gay enough to atone for all
the ups and downs of the day’s school, when Creepy slipped off to his
little bed, thankful to lie down and see if his heart would not stop
that beating that was tiring him so, and if the pain in his back would
let him lie still enough to straighten out all the thoughts that were
making such confusion in his brain.
What had the doctor said? There was a place in the world and a share
in it for him, as well as the rest? But the place must be just here,
under the old butternut; it couldn’t be anywhere else. And he was to
grow stronger, and the pain to grow less, every month until spring,
and then begin to go to school like other boys. What a strange sound
that had! It was pleasant to have the doctor say so; it seemed like a
dream; but one had always to wake up from dreams, and find things were
not so. “All boys go to school.” All but--ah, the doctor did not like
to have him say that. At all events, he was to have a book and study;
and he was to see with his own eyes what lay beyond the turn in the
road. Enoch was to see to his going, and Sue and Mrs. Ganderby were
to do other things, and the doctor was coming again. All these people
thinking of him! It was of no use trying to understand it; if he could
only go to sleep! And yet he feared the dream would be gone when he
waked in the morning; he should find not a word of all to be true.
He shut his eyes just for a moment as he thought, but when he opened
them again the sun was shining through the patched curtain at the
window, and the night was gone. Had the dream taken flight with it?
There was but one way to find out, so he dressed himself with trembling
fingers and crept noiselessly out towards his crooked chair. Enoch
was there before him. Tools lying all around on the yellow leaves, and
the old carpenter so busy with his work that he did not hear Creepy’s
footsteps rustling over them too. The sun had not been fairly above
the horizon before Enoch was off in search of those wheels, belaboring
himself at every step of the way for a stupid blockhead that could
make a chair for a cripple, and never have the idea of putting on a
running-gear come into his head, though he had it before his eyes every
day that the one it was made for never went outside the fence from one
year’s end to another! But where would the money have come from if he
had thought of it ever so long ago? Money makes most wheels turn in
this world, and it’s not strange if a five-dollar bill put into your
hand should bring some of them round to a lame child’s corner once in
a way, as well as elsewhere. A likely young man, that doctor, and wise
enough to know where to choose the right workman to do his job; that
was more than could always be said of them, much as they might know
about people that were laid on their beds and good for nothing!