How the October and November days flitted away! And when one knew
that December was coming, and the wheels of the queer chair could
never rattle over the frozen ground and plough through the snow! It
made no difference, time scurried on just the same. The only comfort
was in making the most of it, and that was certainly done at the
almshouse. Nobody counted the number of times the wheel-chair was
seen going slowly and carefully down toward the wonderful world that
lay out beyond the turn, or up the other way toward the city. And
sure as the hour came round, there was Sue ready for her part in the
doctor’s programme, and many a time the work carried her back to old
days until she forgot her bargain, and the half hour stretched on into
two or three times its length. How the pages were turned over in that
arithmetic! But that wasn’t all for Creepy. There were the doctor’s
visits! When he was there, such wonder, and such content; and when he
was gone, there were the hours to be counted till he would come again.
Every one in the house came to know the sound of the black horse’s
trot, coming down the road, and just how many seconds might be allowed
between its being reined up and the doctor’s having his hand on the
door-knob. Very few they were, the listeners soon found; there was
hardly time for Creepy’s heart to give a bound and say, “There he is!”
But after he was once at Creepy’s side, no one would have dreamed that
he was in a hurry. Time enough to hear just how many drives Enoch had
given him, and to see the lessons that had been gone over, and to ask
here and there, carelessly as it seemed, about the pain, and how the
medicines were going. Then there was always a little chat about what he
had seen going on in the city, and what the boys were doing there, so
that, as he used to say laughing, Creepy shouldn’t be altogether behind
the times when he took his place among them. Then a moment with Mrs.
Ganderby, or a compliment to Enoch, or Sue, and he was off again.
And all the while the days were slipping by, until November, dull
and grim as some of its last hours had been, was fairly crowded out,
the ground was frozen hard, and a few flakes of snow came fluttering
down. Then the doctor found Enoch standing, cap in hand, in the hall,
looking at the crooked chair, which, if it had been queer at first, was
certainly queerer still since he had rigged the “running-gear.”
“Is there any trouble, Enoch?” he asked, for the old carpenter was
running his hand through his hair, and with the most uncomfortable
expression upon his face.
“Ah, sir, you never came in better time,” said Enoch; “it’s plain
enough there’ll be no further use for these wheels this year, and they
make an awkward thing to be standing about in the way; and yet it’s a
job I don’t like to put my hand to, to undo a piece of work like that.
And it’s only a few months after all.”
“A few months till when?” asked the doctor.
“Why, sir, till they’re wanted again,” said Enoch, staring in the
wonder whether the doctor had asked a stupid question for once.
“Well,” said the doctor, “if you intend to keep a hospital here for
broken legs and crippled children, I advise you to take good care
of your wheels, but so far as my little patient is concerned, the
sooner you make kindling-wood of them the better. I intend to have him
walking into the city every day when the roads are settled again in the
spring.”
Enoch’s stare grew ten times broader, but it was of no use. The doctor
was gone, and if he had not been, Enoch would never have dared to ask
him which of them had lost his senses.
“Now, my little man,” he was just that moment saying to Creepy, “we’ve
come to a corner in our line of march. I’m not satisfied with what
we’ve been doing for that pain, but I wouldn’t fight it any harder
while these pleasant days lasted. There’s not going to be much getting
out, I’m afraid, for a while, and this is the time to take. Suppose I
should want to do something now and then that would make the pain seem
even worse for a little while, would you have courage to try it with
me?”
Up to Creepy’s mind rushed a story that Ben used always to be telling
whenever anything came along that seemed a little hard to bear, about
a certain slave, a great while ago and a great way off, Ben did not
remember when or where, but he believed it was in the East, wherever
that might be. And he did not remember what his name was, but that
did not matter; he knew that his master one day ordered him to be
beaten for a trifle, and when some one asked how he could bear it so
patiently, he answered, “Shall I receive so much good at the hand of
my master, and shall I not receive this little evil also?” And his
master, hearing of it, was so filled with admiration that he gave him
his liberty, and he became a famous philosopher.
But Creepy could not have told the doctor about it for his life, so he
only nodded, and said,
“I am not afraid.”
“Good,” said the doctor; “and you need not be. It is only that there
will be some days when things look rather forlorn, but every one of
them is bringing you nearer to spring, and don’t forget that we are
going fishing together when that time comes.”
So on went the weeks, and the days of pain came in among them here and
there; but there were so many other things to think of! The arithmetic
was no longer the only book, by any means; a geography and a copy-book
came along one after the other, and for times when he did not feel like
using those, there were stories enough to be read. But the doctor’s
visits were more than all the books, and the great eyelids did not
droop any more when he came, but Creepy had learned to look him square
in the face, whatever incredible thing he might be saying. But he would
not come _this_ morning; that was certain enough, he thought, as he sat
looking out of the window at the snow that came drifting through the
air until it seemed the clouds themselves were falling. Faster and
thicker every moment, and yet it had been coming all night; the trees
were groaning under their loads, the drifts were like great ocean-waves
up and down the road, and the grass-seeds the doctor had scattered over
the path in the fall were buried ten times deeper than ever before; for
though Enoch had had his shovel ready ever since breakfast, there it
stood by the old clock; there was no use turning out to make paths yet.
So Creepy stood at the window, just waiting to see what would happen
next, until his eyes were almost blinded; but there was certainly
something coming down the road! Only a little dark object at first, but
nearer and larger every moment. The black horse and his sleigh! And
almost before Creepy could rub his eyes and try to see more surely,
they were at the gate, Enoch’s path was broken for him, and the doctor
was at the door shaking the snow from his shoulders and taking off his
fur cap to knock down a pyramid from the crown, before Mrs. Ganderby
should find it melting over her floor.
“So you thought it was the sheeted ghost of myself, eh?” he said,
laughing, as Creepy opened the door; and Creepy laughed too, for
that was one of the things he had learned of late, though not from
any book. “You’re mistaken, sir; I never was heartier in my life.
There’s nothing like fighting a storm, to send one’s blood gayly to
his finger-ends. And how are you this morning, my little man? Brave
and well? Not quite equal to breasting this weather yet, eh?” and he
stooped with one of those quick looks into Creepy’s face that always
made his heart leap up into his throat.
And the weather, as if finding that it had done its worst and troubled
nobody, took a new tack; the clouds shut their gates and drew off, then
began to break away, and by the time the doctor was ready to go, were
rolling like great fleeces over a blue sky, and the sun was pouring
down, and the whole work of the storm lay in one measureless, glorious
glitter over the earth.
“It looks well this morning, doesn’t it, this world that we own?” said
the doctor, as he snatched a glance while he drew on his overcoat. “A
pretty proud bit of ownership for us all, I think, don’t you? Some of
its treasures may not be distributed just even, all around, but the
thing itself belongs to us. Eh, my man?”
What was he saying? Who? He said a great many things that seemed like
dreaming, and yet, he surely would not say them, if they did not seem
real to him!
As for a bit of this life belonging to Creepy, he didn’t call that a
dream any longer, since he had the doctor’s friendship; it seemed to
him he not only lived, but basked in the sunshine, since that joy had
come in. But God’s world, the real, great, wonderful world that lay out
beyond the turn in the road, out beyond the city even, stretching away
into beauty and treasure that he often tired himself with trying to
imagine; ah, that could never be! That was for the well and the strong
and the rich; for people who rode in their carriages, and would only
think him fit to run after them and open the carriage-door. For the
doctor too, of course, for every one ran after him, and _he_ would be
rich some day. But for himself--
The doctor stooped, shot a look into his eyes, and saw it all. In
another moment he had lifted Creepy gently in his arms, as he did that
first day under the old butternut, and was holding his face right
before his own.
“Look here, my little man,” he was saying, “I want to have this thing
understood once for all. I have been trying to put some new ideas into
this head of yours, these three months now, but I have not succeeded
as well as I wish, and I must see if I can make myself understood this
time. Who do you think made this world, and who do you think He made
it for, this King of ours who has taught us all to call him Father?
Don’t you know that whatever a king owns, the princes have a share in
as heirs; and more than that, there’s a dominion set apart for them now
and then, as a birthright? This is a great, glorious, beautiful world,
as everything our King makes is, and he made it for us, his children;
and the Prince Royal, our Elder Brother, who came and walked among us,
bought it again for us by his life and his death, after things began
to go wrong. I tell you, my boy, we’re of royal blood, you and I, just
as much as the greatest man that other men bow down to; we can’t be
_more_ than the children of the King, any of us. Only see to it that
you keep close to the Prince Royal, and follow his steps like a child
of the house, and you can claim your share with the tallest and the
strongest of the sons. And if you don’t get hold of a square acre that
men will call your own, in the course of your life, you can look at the
blue hills and the soft skies, and walk among the broad fields and the
flowers, with just as happy and as glad a throb in your heart as the
people who have paid thousands for them. Do you understand, little
man? Do you believe what I say?”
Once more Creepy couldn’t have spoken for his life; but though the
understanding and the believing that the doctor was asking for were
only stealing over the edge of his heart, like the first ray of
morning, yet they were making a glow there not so very different from
the rosy light he had seen the dawn spread over the snow-drift under
his window. It flushed up to his cheek with very much the same color,
and satisfied the doctor better than words could have done. With the
same quiet, gentle pressure that Creepy remembered so well, he placed
him in his chair again and was gone.
He was gone, and Creepy stood by the window once more; but was it
the same little almshouse cripple that had looked out from it in the
morning? It seemed to him that chains had fallen from him, as his heart
opened wider and wider to the doctor’s words. The warm glow grew to a
great throbbing joy, and he felt himself stretching up from the stunted
little soul he had been, and _almost_ laying his hand upon things more
joyful than he had ever dreamed that even a strong man could reach.
The Prince Royal his Elder Brother? That meant the Lord Christ, of
course. The doctor had spoken of him more than once, but Creepy had
not dared put the “all but me,” aside then. But why not? Keep close to
Him? Why shouldn’t he? Didn’t he come close to the doctor? and wasn’t
the Lord Jesus like him, only a thousand times stronger, and wiser and
gentler even than he; for wasn’t He a physician himself when He was
here, and wasn’t He always the same? Did He not call the weak and the
lame to Him, and did He not once take some of them in his arms, just as
the doctor had taken him to-day? Children of the King, and the Elder
Brother sharing his birthright with them? Oh, how different the world
looked this time out of the queer old window! He stood still and almost
held his breath, for it seemed to him as he looked up into the blue
sky, that he felt some one drawing near, and the same bewildering joy
that had come when he first felt the doctor’s arms around him, rose up
in his heart once more, only stronger and deeper than before. For was
not this some one who would never go away?
“Which I did say,” exclaimed Mrs. Ganderby to Sue, a few days
afterwards, as Creepy passed through the room with two or three of his
precious books in his hand, “which I did say wonders never would cease;
and here is the showing of it before our own eyes, for I mentioned
at the same time that sometimes doctors cure and sometimes they kill,
and sometimes they do neither one nor the other; and here it is, not
only that he’s getting the poor crooked thing where he’s going about so
light on his feet that the name Creepy will soon be no further use to
him; but the child that I thought would never learn to look anybody in
the face otherwise than to beg their pardon for being in the world at
all, is certainly getting a way of holding up his head and going about
as if he’d found out that his soul was his own, in spite of anything
that heaven or some people that were lower hadn’t seen fit to do for
his body, which there is no one could be more pleased than myself to
look on and see it, though if it isn’t altogether like a miracle of the
olden times, I don’t know what any one could put themselves about to
call it.”