Donnie tried to smile, but tears filled his eyes and he held out his uninjured hand to his mother. She sat on the couch beside him smoothing his hair and talking in a low voice, until at last, with his right hand still clasped in hers, he fell asleep.
"All right now," Powell assured her, as he put away the articles on the table. "He is exhausted from the nerve shock, nothing more."
The doctor glanced at Katherine and exclaimed, "Bless my heart! You need attention almost as badly as Donnie."
He left the room and returned with a glass. "Just a little port wine. Drink every drop of it," he ordered.
Her hand shook as she lifted the glass to her white lips, then she held out the empty glass and sank into a chair that Powell rolled before the fireplace. Her eyes closed wearily. The doctor understood the over taxed nerves, and as he glanced from mother to child, a feeling of rage against Glendon consumed him. The only sound in the room was the sputter of the burning wood. Katherine looked anxiously at the sleeping child, then at the doctor.
"He's all right," Powell answered her unvoiced fear. "It had been a terrible strain on you both. The bone will begin to knit in a few days and Donnie will have nothing to remind him of the accident in a short time. It's part of a boy's life to have such things as broken legs and arms," he smiled.
"Please don't think I am ungrateful. There are some emotions one almost cannot express, because we feel them too deeply for words. I don't know how to thank you."
"How did it happen?" asked Powell, trying to divert her from any sense of obligation.
"It came so suddenly that it dazed me," she began. "Last summer the wall of the bedroom bulged and Juan made new adobes to fix it; but Mr. Glendon has been too busy to attend to it. We never thought of danger, for an adobe wall often stands for years with big cracks in it, you know. Donnie was sleeping next to the wall in my bed when the crash came. The wall fell outward, but part of the adobe struck his arm. It was dark. I spoke to him and he did not answer. I thought he was dead until I heard him moan." She stopped and bit her lip fiercely.
The doctor placed a fresh log on the fire, and while he prodded the embers, the woman gained control of her voice.