Jimmy-boy was eight years old, but he had never walked. That he never would walk had been the verdict of several physicians, but Dr. North, who was deeply interested in the case, was beginning to fancy that he saw a tiny ray of light, so very faint, however, that he forbore to express his idea even to Jimmy-boy’s mother.
All that day the twins sat stiffly upon Jimmy-boy’s bed, while his active little brain invented queer games in which his imagination made them take an active part; while he talked aloud, first for one and then for the other in a queer little growling voice, which he varied from time to time accordingly as it represented one cub or the other.
At last he fell asleep with the twins clasped close to him, having passed a happier day than any that he could remember in many a long year.
As soon as it was quite safe to do so, the cubs wriggled out of the child’s embrace and started out to investigate their new surroundings and, above all, to find, if possible, something to put into their clamoring little stomachs.
It did not take very long to go over the territory included in two small rooms. Mrs. Gray slept beside Jimmy-boy’s bed in an astounding arrangement that shut up in the daytime and imposed itself upon a credulous public as a shabby chest of drawers, which the cubs regarded with unqualified amazement, as they had never before beheld such a contrivance. They could see no good reason why the thing did not shut up and flatten out its occupant and indeed rather expected to see that event take place at any moment.
Teddy bears, however, never lose any time in speculation, and the cubs turned their attention to the kitchen, being very much disgusted that the only available light consisted of an oil lamp, an article which, like the folding-bed, they had never before encountered, and of which they were proportionately afraid.
With the aid of a box of matches, however, they raided the larder, a very slender one, indeed, but they discovered a couple of fresh eggs intended for Jimmy-boy’s breakfast, and a bottle of rather blue-looking milk. The eggs they sucked greedily, and after drinking all the milk they wished for, upset the remainder on the floor.
They were greatly disgusted at being obliged to put up with such short rations, and resolved as soon as practicable to leave a place where they could find so very little that was congenial.
