“I’ll stay and watch him,” Joanne volunteered.
“So will I,” said Winnie. “Perhaps one of us should go and report to Miss Dodge, so she will know why we are detained. Perhaps you’d better go, Jo, while I stay here and get the doctor’s instructions.”
Joanne acquiesced, and started off on her errand, returning with Miss Dodge herself and bearing several hot water bottles.
“That’s the thing,” exclaimed the doctor when Joanne produced the bottles. “This your captain? Well, Captain, you are to be congratulated. But for the prompt action of one of your girls Mrs. Scraggs would have lost her baby. I think he is all right, but I’ll come in again to-morrow to see how he is getting along.” So saying he drove off, and Claude Lafayette was left to his two nurses.
Miss Dodge laid her two hands on Winnie’s shoulders and looked down into her glowing face. “I am proud of my girls,” she said, “and just now especially so of this one. It is a great privilege to be given the chance to save a life, Winnie, girl.”
“I was so afraid I couldn’t do it,” returned Winnie earnestly. “I had never tried on a real subject before, but I had the system down fine for I knew how important it would be in case of emergency.”
By reason of seeing the doctor’s car go flying by, the people in the little settlement by the lock got wind of the accident, and presently came in groups of two or three till quite a crowd had gathered and Mrs. Scraggs was kept busy answering questions. However, she was not averse to being the center of interest, and made the most of her harrowing tale. Of course every one wanted to see the baby, but here Miss Dodge rose to the occasion. Joanne met two or three curious women on their way up-stairs to the room where the baby lay. Back flew Joanne.
“Miss Dodge, Miss Dodge,” she said in an excited whisper. “Everybody is piling up-stairs to see the baby. They mustn’t come in, must they? The doctor said he must be kept perfectly quiet.”
Miss Dodge moved quietly and softly to the door which she closed after her and met the visitors at the head of the stairs. “Dear people,” she said, “you want that little baby to get well, don’t you? Then, please won’t you wait till he is better before you see him? The doctor said he must be kept very, very quiet, and we don’t even allow any of his family in the room with him, just two of us to keep watch.”
“Are you the nurse?” asked the foremost woman.