"Will it hurt him to eat, doctor?" inquired Ralph.
"Not a bit of it. In fact, except to feed him and watch, I don't see that he needs anything. You can't splint a brain shock as you can a broken finger, or poultice a skull depression as you would a bruise. There's simply something mental gone out of the boy's life that science cannot put in again. There is this hope, though: that when the physical shock has fully passed, something may develop for the better."
"You mean to-day, to-morrow----"
"Oh, no--weeks, maybe months."
Ralph looked disheartened, but the next moment his face took upon it a look of resolution always adopted when he fully made up his mind to anything.
"Very well," he said, "he must be taken to our house."
With the doctor Ralph was a rare favorite, and his face showed that he read and appreciated the kindly spirit that prompted the young railroader's action. He placed his hand in a friendly way on his shoulder.
"Fairbanks," he said, "you're a good kind, and do credit to yourself, but I fear you are in no shape to take such a burden on your young shoulders."
"It is my burden," said Ralph firmly, "whose else's? Why, doctor! if I let that poor fellow go to the hospital, among utter strangers, handed down the line you don't know where--poorhouse, asylum, and pauper's grave maybe, it would haunt me! No, I feel I am responsible for his condition, and I intend to take care of him, at least until something better for him turns up. Help me, boys."
"I'll drop in to see him again, at your house," said the doctor. "I don't think he will make you any trouble in the way of violence, or that, but you had better keep a constant eye on him."