“People always feel queer when they have a broken leg; but time will mend it, and you will be all the better for the rest in bed. I expect you will grow a bit, too.” Pam spoke in the cheeriest possible tone, and then she added, with intent to make him laugh: “Jack says that my brother Greg grew so much, when he lay in bed ill with rheumatic fever, that when he was able to get up they had to buy new clothes for him because the old ones were too small.”
Reggie looked frightened.
“If that happens to me,” he rejoined, “I shall have to sew myself into a sack, for I have no more clothes, nor any money to buy them. I am dreadful scared because of the Doctor, and all the rest of it. Of course I can work it all out, but it takes time, and going to school makes such a difference. I get up directly it comes daylight, then by school-time I’m so sleepy I can’t see the figures of my sums, and I’m dreaming before I even think of dozing. Schoolmarm lays on for that, and no mistake! My word, she is a rare one at fighting!”
Pam laughed, but her heart was very sore, and she felt that she wanted to put her head down beside Reggie and cry from sheer pity. Instead, she gave him a reassuring pat on the shoulder, and said kindly:
“Don’t you worry about expense. The Doctor won’t charge for coming to see you, and we shan’t charge for taking care of you, so you can feel as if you are away from home on a visit, and you need have no worries about anything. Then, when you are better, you can go on earning your living again, unless your brother has come back to take care of you.”
The reference to Mose was unfortunate. The light which had come into the eyes of Reggie at her words faded into a look of apprehension, and his face set itself in lines of care, while his voice was an anxious whisper as he said:
“Mose won’t come back; he has quit for good and all. If only he had taken me with him I wouldn’t have cared, but it wasn’t playing fair to leave me behind.”
Pam had a choking sensation, and her eyes were smarting with tears; but it would never do to let him see them, so she made an effort to say lightly:
“Perhaps he felt that you would be happier here among the people you know. You have regular work with Miss Gittins, and perhaps she will let you sleep there, now that your house has been washed away.”
“I’ve lost that!” answered the boy, with dumb hopeless misery in his face.