“That man certainly is a character!” she exclaimed. “Whoever heard of curing rheumatism by drinking coffee ‘gradual’ and holding your feet in water? I never know what queer notion he’s going to have next. I put a pot of bright red geraniums in his room once to brighten it up and he promptly brought it back, because, ‘Jewraniums am powerful unlucky, Mis’ ’Lizbeth. I was plantin’ jewraniums dat day de goat got killed.’ Poor old Hercules, he does miss that goat so! He was simply inconsolable at first, and finally I resigned myself to a life of misery and told him to go and get himself another goat, but he wouldn’t do it. Nothing could take the place of that fiendish old animal in his affections. I believe he’ll mourn for him all the rest of his life.”
“Let’s invite him in for Sylvia’s birthday party to-morrow night,” suggested Migwan. “That’ll cheer him up and make him forget all about his ‘mizry’ for a while. Let’s find a masquerade costume for him, too, so he can be one of us.”
Nyoda smiled brightly at Migwan. “Thoughtful child!” she said fondly. “Always thinking of someone else’s pleasure. Certainly we’ll ask Hercules to the party.
“Now, all you menfolk clear out of this kitchen, or we won’t get any dinner to-night!”
CHAPTER XII
THE SPIRIT OF A PRINCESS
“O Nyoda, it can’t be true!”
Sahwah’s anguished wail cut across the stricken silence of the room.
The eminent surgeon had just made his examination of Sylvia and pronounced the verdict that had sent all their rosy air castles tumbling about their ears: “Nothing can be done. An operation would be useless. It is not a case of a splintered vertebra which could be patched. The nerves which control the limbs are paralyzed. She will never walk again.”
The last five words fell upon their ears like the tolling of a sorrowful bell. “She will never walk again.” Stunned by the unexpected verdict the Winnebagos stood mutely about Sylvia in anguished sympathy.
She lay motionless on the sofa, a white-faced, pitiful little ghost of a princess; her glad animation gone, her radiance extinguished, her song stricken upon her lips.