The blood upon her hand told that she must have fallen and hurt herself badly. No doubt it was the sight of the blood that frightened her even more than the pain.
Ralph sprang forward, and the tear-stained face was turned up to him eagerly.
“What’s happened to you, little one?” asked the boy, as he bent down.
Already had he taken a clean handkerchief out, and shaken it from its folds. Thank goodness he had supplied himself liberally, with a hot game before him. Picking up the mangled hand, he saw that it was in need of immediate attention, as possibly a heavy rock had fallen on the fingers.
Ralph began to tenderly wrap his handkerchief about the torn fingers, at the same time speaking soothingly to the child. She had ceased crying and was looking at him wonderingly. Doubtless his baseball uniform astonished her greatly.
“It fell on me,” she managed to say, pointing to something near by; and Ralph saw that his surmise had been correct in so far as it concerned a stone.
“But what are you doing here; where do you live?” he asked, anxiously.
The child should not be left here in these woods with so serious a wound as the crushed fingers would likely prove. And yet his time was not wholly his own, since he must be on the field presently in order to practice before the calling of the great game.
“I’m Mary Smalling,” said the child, with utmost confidence and simplicity, as if every one ought to know after that.
Ralph had caught sight of a dinner pail on the ground near by. It was empty, too, which fact gave him the impression that the little girl might have been on the way home after carrying a noonday meal to her father.