But even they wasted few words on him, ashamed as they were to think that he should have sought to save himself at the sacrifice of Viola.
Straight to bed did Mrs. Watson put Harry when he was brought to the house, giving him warming drinks; while his chums rubbed his benumbed arms and legs. But he did not respond to their treatment as quickly as he should, and in alarm, his aunt finally sent for a doctor.
Grave, indeed, did the man of medicine look after he had completed his examination of the boy.
“If he’d been exposed for another half hour, I doubt if we could have brought him around,” he announced. “As it is, it will be several days before he will be up and about.”
But the physician was mistaken—his days were weeks.
His nervous system overtaxed because of his worry in regard to his father, Harry’s physical condition had run down, and the chill he received caused him to go off into pneumonia.
Harry’s illness, however, served one good purpose—it caused a reaction in the feelings of his schoolmates. When it became noised around that he had endangered his life to rescue the girl who was skating with his implacable enemy, the boys and girls of Rivertown High realized that he was made of good material. And their change in feelings was shown by calls they made to ask about his condition, and the delicacies they sent in. But only Paul, Jerry and finally Viola were allowed to see him, though they were forbidden to talk to him.
Little, indeed, did he talk, and then only to ask if word had come from Jed Brown. And as his aunt was forced, day after day, to declare that she had heard nothing, the boy seemed to lose all interest in getting well.
But the crippled veteran, though silent, had not deserted the boy who had rescued him from the bully.
Arrived in Lawrenceburgh, he had vainly pleaded with several influential men to arrange for a stay in the execution of sentence upon Harry’s father. But one and all, they turned a deaf ear to his pleadings, and Mr. Watson was forced to go to prison.