She had an idea that Davie must not be moved at all for a week at least, and as a precaution against this she tied the bandaged leg to the side of the wickiup. For the life of her she could not remember how long it took a broken bone to heal, though she must some time have heard some one say; and of course the others were no wiser. Delbert had it running in his head that it was three weeks, but Jennie said, “No, that is how long it takes a chicken to hatch.”
“Anyway,” said Esther, “when it does grow together it itches awfully. I heard Mr. Faston say so.”
Davie was so exhausted that he slept quite a while that afternoon, but by night he was awake and feverish, and, of course, very fretful.
Marian kept pouring a little cold water on his bandages. She was sure that was the right thing to do, and she sat beside him, soothing him by every device she could think of and feeling her heart grow heavier and heavier as his fever rose and he struggled to turn and toss, and moaned and cried.
At night the little girls slept, and Delbert too to some extent, but there was no sleep for Marian. She was afraid there was some internal injury, not knowing that the fever was the natural result of the shock and hurt and only what any doctor would have expected.
She kept the bandages wet with cold water and wrung out hot cloths and applied them to the sore and lame spots. She bathed and rubbed and worked over Davie and she kept her voice cheerful and her eyes smiling, though a sickening fear held her heart.
It was days and days before she could feel at all easy, but the fever departed, the swellings went down, and no more lame spots came to light. Davie ate well and slept fairly well too. He began to regain his old sunny ways, and the tension on Marian’s nerves relaxed. But, of course, she had to stay by him pretty closely; so the other children performed the business of the day alone.
They attended to the garden and went down after each tide to see if there were any fish in High-Tide Pool, because, though they never found a whole school in there as they had on that day soon after their arrival, still there were very likely to be one or two lurking in the dark hole in the rocks, and one child would wade in and scare them out, and Delbert, standing ready with the spear, would gather them in. There were quite a number of places among the rocks where fish, and often big fish, were to be found after high tide. If they could get them that way, it saved going at night, and of course they could not well do that now. Anyway, it took quite a pile of pitalla to light them for a night’s spearing, and pitalla was getting scarce in the near neighborhood.