Then Mother undid Peter's boots. As she took the right one off, something dripped from his foot on to the ground. It was red blood. And when the stocking came off there were three red wounds in Peter's foot and ankle, where the teeth of the rake had bitten him, and his foot was covered with red smears.
“Run for water—a basinful,” said Mother, and Phyllis ran. She upset most of the water out of the basin in her haste, and had to fetch more in a jug.
Peter did not open his eyes again till Mother had tied her handkerchief round his foot, and she and Bobbie had carried him in and laid him on the brown wooden settle in the dining-room. By this time Phyllis was halfway to the Doctor's.
Mother sat by Peter and bathed his foot and talked to him, and Bobbie went out and got tea ready, and put on the kettle.
“It's all I can do,” she told herself. “Oh, suppose Peter should die, or be a helpless cripple for life, or have to walk with crutches, or wear a boot with a sole like a log of wood!”
She stood by the back door reflecting on these gloomy possibilities, her eyes fixed on the water-butt.
“I wish I'd never been born,” she said, and she said it out loud.
“Why, lawk a mercy, what's that for?” asked a voice, and Perks stood before her with a wooden trug basket full of green-leaved things and soft, loose earth.
“Oh, it's you,” she said. “Peter's hurt his foot with a rake—three great gaping wounds, like soldiers get. And it was partly my fault.”
“That it wasn't, I'll go bail,” said Perks. “Doctor seen him?”