“Sure!” said the man, good-naturedly.
“You’ll truly, truly be very careful of her?”
“Sure will,” repeated the unfortunate.
So, after she had placed the doll carefully in his arms, the little girl tripped away on her errand of mercy. The man sat down on the curb and held it. It might have been a laughable situation—only no thinking person could have laughed.
The man nursed the doll as tenderly as Dot would have done herself. He rocked to and fro on the curb, hugging the battered doll and looking down at it earnestly.
Nobody had yet noticed the incident—save Sammy Pinkney; and Sammy Pinkney had run away.
Dot was bold in the cause of any one in need, if she was not bold for herself. She asked for the glass of cold water and obtained it. She brought it carefully back to the man on the curbstone, holding the glass in both her dimpled hands.
His face was still very red, but his eyes were no longer glassy. He looked at the child with a shamed expression slowly dawning in his countenance, and his eyes were moist with tears.
“You’d better take your doll, little girl, and get away from me,” he said, but not roughly.
“Oh, no,” said Dot, determinedly. “I must help you. I know you must be very sick. You ought to see our Dr. Forsyth. He could make you well quick, I know.”