“Phyllis has gone for the Doctor.”
“He'll be all right; you see if he isn't,” said Perks. “Why, my father's second cousin had a hay-fork run into him, right into his inside, and he was right as ever in a few weeks, all except his being a bit weak in the head afterwards, and they did say that it was along of his getting a touch of the sun in the hay-field, and not the fork at all. I remember him well. A kind-'earted chap, but soft, as you might say.”
Bobbie tried to let herself be cheered by this heartening reminiscence.
“Well,” said Perks, “you won't want to be bothered with gardening just this minute, I dare say. You show me where your garden is, and I'll pop the bits of stuff in for you. And I'll hang about, if I may make so free, to see the Doctor as he comes out and hear what he says. You cheer up, Missie. I lay a pound he ain't hurt, not to speak of.”
But he was. The Doctor came and looked at the foot and bandaged it beautifully, and said that Peter must not put it to the ground for at least a week.
“He won't be lame, or have to wear crutches or a lump on his foot, will he?” whispered Bobbie, breathlessly, at the door.
“My aunt! No!” said Dr. Forrest; “he'll be as nimble as ever on his pins in a fortnight. Don't you worry, little Mother Goose.”
It was when Mother had gone to the gate with the Doctor to take his last instructions and Phyllis was filling the kettle for tea, that Peter and Bobbie found themselves alone.
“He says you won't be lame or anything,” said Bobbie.
“Oh, course I shan't, silly,” said Peter, very much relieved all the same.