Peaches buried her shamed face on Peter's breast. He screened her with a big hand.
"Now never you mind! Never you mind!" he repeated. "Everybody turn a deaf ear! That was a slip! Nobody heard it! You mean Little Butterfly White, 'rub hard.' Say rub hard and that will fix it!"
"Mickey," she said in a faint voice so subdued and contrite as to be ridiculous, "Mickey-lovest, won't you please to rub hard! Rub jus' as hard!"
Mickey suddenly bent to kiss the bony little foot he was chafing.
"Yes darling, I'll rub 'til it a-most bleeds," he said.
When the feet were glowing with alternate sand-rubbing and splashing in cold water, Peter looked at his wife.
"I think that's the ticket!" he said. "Nancy, don't you? That pulls down the blood with rubbing, and drives it back with cold water, and pulls it down, to be pushed back again—ain't that helping the heart get in its work? Now if we strengthen her with right food, and make lots of pure blood to run in these little blue canals on her temples, and hands and feet, ain't we gaining ground? Ain't we making headway?"
"We've just got to be," said Mrs. Harding. "There's no other way to figure it. But this is enough for a start."
Peaches leaned toward her and asked: "May we do this again to-morrow, nicest lady?"
"Well I can't say as we can come clear here every day; I'm a busy woman, and my spare time is scarce; and even light as you are, you'd be a load for me; I can't say as we can do this when Peter is busy plowing and harvesting and Junior is away on the cream wagon, and Mickey is in town at his work; we can't do just this; but there is something we can do that will help the feet quite as much. We can bring a bucket of sand up to the house, and set a tub of water in the sun, and you can lie on a comfort under an apple tree with Mary and Bobbie to watch you, and every few hours we can take a little time off for rubbing and splashing."