Roger gasped. “And it isn’t weak?”
“It’s as strong as a prize fighter’s. Your trouble is with the digestion.”
“Shall I be laid up long?”
“Not if you obey directions. You’ll have to be careful for a day or two.”
A wonderful change swept over the patient’s face. The dismal air of resignation to an evil fate fell from him like a mask. His eyes flashed bright with hope and eagerness. He popped into a sitting posture with a quickness of recovery that would have delighted Caffrey’s heart, and stretched out both hands toward the physician.
“Can I row on Wednesday? Oh, doctor, please say I can!”
Dr. Brayton laughed aloud. “Not if you act in that way. Lie down and keep quiet, and do what you’re told.”
“I’ll do anything, starve or eat slops or lie here like a log till Wednesday,” declared Roger, as he fell back again in obedience to orders, “but you’ve got to make me well enough to row. You’ll do it, won’t you?”
“We’ll see. Stay quietly in bed to-day, take only the nourishment which I have ordered, and don’t get up to-morrow until I come. You must get your strength back before you can think of rowing.”
For the rest of the day Roger lay in uneasy happiness, taking with Fletcher-like deliberateness the sloppy messes that were brought to him, receiving visitors as they drifted in after church, and kicking his legs like a lusty infant. The burden of his despair had suddenly lifted as a cloud cap lifts from a mountain peak and discloses miles of glorious, sunny landscape that had seemed but a little before as hopelessly buried in gloom as the peak itself. At times he could hardly restrain himself from leaping forth from bed and dancing out his joy. In the afternoon, when the fellows went off for walks, he took a nap; he awoke refreshed and impatient to be moving. He obeyed his orders, however, helped out by a book and the presence of various friendly souls who had time on their hands and could talk indefinitely of nothing. At night he slept again for long, unbroken hours.