“I want the belladonna,” said Rich, with her face contracted once more.
“Why, that’s one o’ they little bottles up a-top where they’re all pisons! Whatcher want that for?” said Bob suspiciously. Then, as he read her countenance. “Whatcher got—toothache?”
Rich nodded.
“Here, hold hard! you can’t reach it, Miss. Let me get on a chair. Oh, I say! Let me pull it out.”
The boy’s eager sympathy and desire to afford relief, grotesque as it was, seemed so genuine, so grateful to the lonely girl, that she smiled at her poor coarse companion’s troubled face.
“No, no, Bob,” she said gently.
“Wish I could have it instead,” he cried. “I do, s’elp me!”
“It will be better soon, Bob,” she said, as the boy climbed up and obtained the little stoppered bottle from the top shelf.
“That’s good stuff for it, Miss,” said the boy. “Bottle’s quite clean. I dusted all on ’em yesterday. Here, I know! let me put some on.”
“You, Bob?” said Rich.