She did not ask who the children were, nor from whence they had come. Perhaps she remembered having seen them the day before on the stage; or Sourface Wallace may have told her.
Julie and Gerald followed, wondering what the “hospital” might be.
Back of the cabin, on a rocky ledge, the children saw a queer assortment of wooden boxes, small cages and little runways. “This is the hospital.” Meg flashed a merry smile at them over her shoulder. “There aren’t many patients just now. Most of them have been cured. Here’s one little darling, and I’m afraid he never will be well. Some prowling creature caught him and had succeeded in breaking a wing when it heard me coming. Why it dropped its prey when it ran, I don’t know, but I brought the little fellow home and Pap helped me set its wing. It’s ever so much better, but even yet can’t fly, but it can scuttle along the ground just ever so fast.”
Gerald was much interested.
“What kind of a bird is it, Miss Heger?” he began, very politely, when the girl’s musical laughter rippled out. “Don’t call me that!” she pleaded. “It makes me feel as old as the thousand-year pine Teacher Bellows told our class about. It’s a little quail bird, dearie. You’ll see ever so many of them in flocks. There are sixty different kinds of cousins in their family. The Bob Whites with their reddish brown plumage have a black and white speckled jacket. They live in the grass rather than in trees and are good friends of the farmer because they devour so many of the insects that destroy grain and fruits. This one is a mountain quail; it is one of the largest cousins. The one that lives in the South is called a partridge.”
Gerald listened politely to the life history of the pretty bird, but his attention had been seized and held by what Meg had said about the very ancient pine. “Was there ever a tree that lived a thousand years?” he asked with eager interest. The girl nodded. “Indeed, there are many that have lived much longer, but this pine was blown over, and Teacher Bellows was allowed to cut it up to read its life history. He found that it had been in two forest fires, and about five hundred years ago an Indian battle had been fought near it, for there were arrow heads imbedded in the rings that indicated that year of its life.”
Then Meg concluded with her bright smile: “Some day, when Teacher Bellows is up here, I’ll have him tell you the names and probable ages of all our neighbor trees! It’s a fascinating study.”
Julie was not much interested in the length of a tree’s life and so she began eagerly: “Miss—I mean—do you want us to call you Meg?” she interrupted herself to inquire.
The older girl nodded. Every move she made seemed to express bubbling-over enthusiasm and interest. “Haven’t you any more patients?”
Gerry was peering into empty boxes in which there were soft, leaf-like beds.