“It'll hurt rather, won't it?” he said. “I don't mean to be a coward. You won't think I'm a coward if I faint again, will you? I really and truly don't do it on purpose. And I do hate to give you all this trouble.”
“Don't you worry,” said Mother; “it's you that have the trouble, you poor dear—not us.”
And she kissed him just as if he had been Peter. “We love to have you here—don't we, Bobbie?”
“Yes,” said Bobbie—and she saw by her Mother's face how right she had been to bring home the wounded hound in the red jersey.
Chapter XIII. The hound's grandfather.
Mother did not get back to her writing all that day, for the red-jerseyed hound whom the children had brought to Three Chimneys had to be put to bed. And then the Doctor came, and hurt him most horribly. Mother was with him all through it, and that made it a little better than it would have been, but “bad was the best,” as Mrs. Viney said.
The children sat in the parlour downstairs and heard the sound of the Doctor's boots going backwards and forwards over the bedroom floor. And once or twice there was a groan.
“It's horrible,” said Bobbie. “Oh, I wish Dr. Forrest would make haste. Oh, poor Jim!”
“It IS horrible,” said Peter, “but it's very exciting. I wish Doctors weren't so stuck-up about who they'll have in the room when they're doing things. I should most awfully like to see a leg set. I believe the bones crunch like anything.”