“Why, you told me last night after our supper that you never enjoyed a day more in your life. Surely you had adventures enough, finding pearl-oysters and pearls, eating green cocoanuts off the trees, fishing, and finishing off with an interview with a gigantic saurian and a sail back here.”
“Yes, yes, yes, it was all glorious, but every minute I was being checked either by you or old Bob, or by a sharp pain. Can’t you put some ointment or sticking plaster over the broken place and make it heal or mend up more quickly?”
“No, sir, I cannot,” said the doctor, smiling. “That’s Dame Nature’s work, and she does her part in a slow and sure way. She is forming new bone material to fill up the cracks in your breakage, and if you keep the place free from fretting it will grow stronger than ever; but you must have patience. The bark does not grow over the broken limb of a tree in a week or two; but it covers the place at last. Patience, patience, patience. Just think, my boy, isn’t it wonderful that the mending should go on as it does? Waking or sleeping, the bony matter is forming.”
“Oh, yes, I suppose it’s all very wonderful, but—”
“But you want me to perform a miracle, my dear boy, and you know as well as I do that I can’t.”
Carey sighed.
“I know it is very irksome,” continued the doctor; “but just think of your position. Only the other day I was afraid you were going to die. Now here you are, hale and hearty, with nothing the matter with you but that tender place where the bone is knitting together. Don’t you think you ought to be very thankful?”
“Of course I do!” cried Carey. “That was only a morning growl. But tell me this: will my shoulders and neck be all right again some day?”
“I tell you yes, and the more patient you are, and the more careful not to jar the mending bone, the sooner it will be.”
“There, then, I’ll never grumble again.”