“Get down, Jeff,” said Mr. Benton, “and ride my horse, while I show Tom how to drive these horses.”
A moment after, Jeff and his father had exchanged places, and before Mr. Benton had fully grasped the reins, the ponies took fright and ran out of the road. Coming suddenly to a tree which had fallen, they bounded over it, and the vehicle was upset, and Tom and Mr. Benton were violently thrown out. Tom escaped with a few bruises, but Mr. Benton was seriously injured, his arm being dislocated and his leg broken. Jeff went off for the doctor, and Mr. Benton was carried home insensible.
When Patsy saw the men bringing him into the house in this condition, she thought he had been killed, and was filled with heart-breaking grief and remorse. “Poor father!” she cried, “this is my punishment for wishing I had no father this morning. O Lord, forgive me!”
Mr. Benton, however, was not dead. After his injured limbs were set to rights by the surgeon, he was soon in a fair way to recovery. In the meanwhile, Patsy and her mother devoted themselves wholly to ministering to his wants and ameliorating the tedium of his confinement to the house.
“Pat,” said he one day, “you have been a great trouble and expense to me, but when a man is suffering with a lame arm and a broken leg, women are certainly useful to have in the house. You and your mother have waited on me and taken good care of me for many weeks.” He glanced at his spliced leg and his swollen arm, and continued: “I could not do much cutting up things in the garden at this time, Pat, could I? I wish I had let your flower-beds alone. Great Cæsar! didn’t you make a fuss over those lilies, and your mother, too! You both actually cried over that morning’s work.”
“Never mind, father,” said Patsy, reassuringly, “we don’t care now,” and she smiled sweetly and lovingly upon the hard-featured invalid.
He was almost well when he said to her: “You are a good child, and let me tell you, my doctor has fallen in love with you. He told me so. Yes, Pat, he is mashed on you, and intends to ask you to marry him, and you had better give up any foolish notion you may have taken to Walter Jones, and take the doctor. He is the best chance you will ever have. He is doing well in his profession, and besides having a good home to take you to, he belongs to an influential family. All I ask of you is to promise me you won’t refuse the doctor. You would be a fool to reject such a man.”
“O father!” said the girl, “don’t ask me to promise anything.”
“I am going to be obeyed in my own house,” said Mr. Benton, flying into a rage, “and if you don’t mind me, I will put you out of doors.”
Patsy was struck with consternation.