Miss Phosie looked up, her face quivering with emotion. "You've heard? We can't do anything but wait. Sister and I have his bed all ready, and we've made up a fire. I wish there was something we could do."
"Did you see John Bender when he came over?"
"No, but father did. John wanted to hurry back with some of the men. Thad Eaton's gone and Mil Stevens."
"Mil's a powerful man," remarked Miss Phenie. "He could lift him easier than anybody else. There's nothing to do till they bring him back."
"If he can be brought back," said Miss Phosie wofully.
"Now, Phosie, don't you go a-borrowing trouble," said Miss Phenie with a glance at the small mirror and a settling of her pompadour. "Very likely he wasn't more'n stunned, and he'll be considerable shaken up, likely, so he'll have to keep quiet a few days."
Gwen met Miss Phosie's eyes which were indeed full of trouble. "Did they say he was very badly hurt?"
"John couldn't tell. He was afraid so. He managed to get the rocks off him, but he couldn't move."
Gwen looked around the room, plainly furnished, and displaying few luxuries. There was but one picture, a photograph of a mother and child, taken from one of the modern Madonnas. On the high old-fashioned mahogany bureau lay the worn Bible of which Miss Phosie had once spoken. A pile of magazines and papers was on the table, and a row of books on some shelves against the wall. Shakespeare, some of the old Greek philosophers, Don Quixote in the original, a set of Thackeray were among the books, Gwen noticed as she glanced at the titles.
"He is a great one for reading," remarked Miss Phosie, following the girl's glance. "He has a lamp up here and reads long after we've gone to bed, night after night."