“Next time I venture on any more stratagems,—if I ever do venture on any more,—I’ll warn all the sailors and teamsters in the settlement, so that I can be rescued just in the nick of time,” Will Said good humoredly.
“Yes, as long as they didn’t follow too close at your heels, and spoil the fun. Well, Will, I knew I could cure you if you stayed with me long enough; but I didn’t expect to do it so soon.”
When the patient was easy Will read to him. The books that pleased them most were about mustached heroes who cruised in Polynesia, discovering “sea-girt isles” which Captain Cook and later navigators had missed, and which almost invariably held captive some ragged individual, who, after divers adventures with pirates and Chinamen, had finally succeeded in nailing $795,143 up in a mahogany coffin, only to be shipwrecked with it.
In after years Will looked back on those days spent with Henry as the pleasantest in his boyhood. He had no haunting dreams; got into no disgrace; and, except when he thought of poor Stephen, felt no reproaches of conscience.
One day the mother of the girl who had given Henry a glass ink-bottle came in to inquire personally after his health.
“I heard you were getting better, Henry, but I thought I should like to come and see for myself,” she said pleasantly.
“I wonder now if she didn’t hint to her mother to do this!” Henry thought to himself. “I believe she did; but I wish I knew. Why can’t folks tell the truth, anyway, and say right out how it is! How am I to find out! I know when she had a bad cold, I hinted till my mother went there to ask about her! Botheration! I will know!”
“It’s very good of you to take so much interest in me,” he ventured, slightly emphasizing the word you.
“Yes, Henry, when I saw the doctor call here twice yesterday I thought I must step in and see you.”
The boy was silenced, but not satisfied.