She flew into the kitchen with the towels and blanket, quick, noiseless, radiant.
Dr. Fullerton grinned as he watched her go.
“Funny what a passion for seeing to people that youngster has,” he said, “and what a corker she is at it, too. She’s helped me in some tight places, child as she is. Once it was sewing a man up—bad mowing-machine accident. His wife couldn’t stand by; but Peg could. White as a sheet, but never batted an eye until she’d done all I needed. Then she went away quietly into the yard and keeled over in a faint—but not till her job was done, mind you. That’s Peg.”
Ellen and John arrived during the progress of the bath, and, within an hour, the sick man lay between white, lavender-scented sheets in a room that, while forlorn, was amazingly clean.
“When he comes out of the fever, he’ll think he’s died and gone to hell,” Dr. Fullerton prophesied. “A clean eternity would be about the worst future Ezra could figure out. Who’s going to look after him, while I see to some of my other patients?”
“Me,” announced Peg, making up in enthusiasm what she lacked in grammer. “Boots is at Mrs. Neal’s and it won’t hurt Wiggles and Spunky and Peterkin to go without supper once, and Ellen’ll give you some supper, Mr. Archibald. Won’t you, Ellen?”
“Miss Nora would want me to be staying here,” protested Ellen.
Archibald settled the question.
“Peg and I will stay,” he said, “and maybe Ellen will send John over with a bite for us. We’ll have provisions in here by to-morrow and the back room fit to be lived in. He couldn’t be moved, I suppose, Doctor?”
Dr. Fullerton shook his head.