Ned’s ankle healed all too rapidly, for him; he was out of school only three days. However, it remained weak for a much longer time, affording him the fun of limping about with a cane. The boys quite envied him, and the girls gazed on him with mingled symptoms of awe and pity.
Little Zu-zu Pearce, who, since his rescue of Tom, had adopted him as her own especial hero, came up to him, as he was standing by the schoolhouse steps, and looking at him gravely, said:
“Does it hurt you awful, Ned?”
“Naw,” scoffed Ned. “It’s nothing but just a common sprain, and it’s about well, now.”
“I don’t believe you’d say, even if it was killing you,” asserted Zu-zu, admiringly. “And you were awful brave not to let go of that rope and be killed!”
“Aw, I couldn’t have let go if I’d tried,” asserted Ned, wriggling uneasily. “I was tied on.”
“Well, I don’t care—you didn’t let go, anyway,” returned Zu-zu; and she skipped back to the other girls, leaving Ned red and embarrassed, but nevertheless gazing after her with a pleased expression in his eyes and a kindly warmth in his heart.
But, as in the case of many a badge of honor, the cane presently became irksome. Ned wanted a gun, and he knew that it was no use to aspire to be a hunter if he couldn’t walk and run. So he dropped the cane, now unnecessary, and fell to teasing his father for a shotgun.
Living as they did beside the Mississippi, which is a great thoroughfare for wild fowl in their flights from north to south, and from south to north, each fall and spring the Beauforters were given splendid duck-shooting.