But Chris watched Ted gravely, and at last he said to him:
"I couldn't laugh like you do if I had to lie on my back all day long. I'd have to die straight off if I couldn't jump up and run about."
"That's how I felt first of all," said Ted simply. "But of course it doesn't say much for your pluck if you can't face pain. And I came to see that I must make the best of it, and that I could be thankful that I wasn't blind or deaf and dumb, or covered over with loathsome sores. And—I—well, I've been helped along by remembering that there's a suffering corps in God's army, as well as a fighting corps."
Chris looked at him with big eyes.
Here was a big boy talking about God. He could not understand it.
But after tea, he was made very happy by having a lesson in wood-carving from Ted.
Noel went off with Mr. Wargrave to his study.
He sat on the deep window-ledge there, and swinging his legs, told the vicar all about his Christmas tree.
Mr. Wargrave was a good listener.
"I think it's splendid," he told him. "And then at Christmas perhaps you'd be able to make numbers happy. If I had a tree like that, I would ask a lot of children out of the village, and there are some in the Union, about a mile off on the high road. I'm the chaplain there, and I always feel sorry for the children. They don't have many pleasures. If you love Ted, he'll make you a lot of toys for your tree."