The lonely, only child, Content, had become very fond of little Fritz, and the genuineness of her feeling touched the sister who watched so anxiously beside him. A half-hour of this common grief did more to make them know and love each other than had all their previous weeks of daily intercourse.
But the “best” was still in it all, even if hidden from sight just then; and it was destined to work a blessed change not only in that household but in many another, to which its after effects should reach.
CHAPTER XIV.
For some days after this affair, the “pickles” remained quietly in their “jar,” as Octave laughingly called the great house, wherein they were all gathered at nightfall, no matter how widely they scattered themselves by day.
Content had a fine camera, and considerable skill in using it; so that on all possible occasions she was away over the mountains, taking “views” of this or that place, which her father had described to her as being dear to him in his boyhood. Bulky letters were regularly sent to Osaka, and in each there was some new glimpse of familiar scenes, which the missionary welcomed eagerly.
But this delightful occupation, as well as Paula’s “art” work, Christina’s lessons, and Melville’s “experiments,” were discontinued while the child who was the “life of the house” remained drooping, and showing any effects of his accident.
Octave had nearly recovered the use of her nimble feet, and had, long before the doctor advised it, begun to use the broken arm. The one thing which was impossible to the active girl was quiet; and one morning she announced to the physician that her arm was “mended better than the original,” and that she was going to “help Melville do up some beetles.”
Christina was at that very hour assisting Rosetta to “do up” gooseberries; and the difference in the choice of occupations showed perfectly the difference in the sisters.
Doctor Winslow smiled. He had congratulated himself upon having kept his uneasy charge still as long as he had; and, indeed, he would have found this far more difficult had not the condition of Fritz engrossed all their thoughts. However, that very morning the little fellow had come down to breakfast with the rest, and insisted upon it that “Paula should stop making believe he was sick when he wasn’t no such thing, so there; and he was going out to have a tussle with Don.”
“’Twon’t hurt him a mite,” remarked Rosetta, when Christina had reported Fritzy’s daring proposal to her. “Thar ain’t ben nothin’ the matter with him, anyhow, ’cept his losin’ his senses. I’ve ben a thinkin’ this couple o’ days ’at ye’d all make the child sick with your cossetin’ him an’ feedin’ him trash. Let him try the donkey; he won’t get fur, ner overheat hisself a-ridin’.”