“Oh, don’t feel sorry for me!” and the lame boy laughed. “I’m lots better than some. Why, I can even kick a football with my ‘bad’ foot as I call it, though there are lots of others worse. If I had a football now——”
“There’s Trouble’s,” suggested Jan, looking at Baby William, who was sitting in the shadow of the goat cart trying to tickle Nicknack with blades of grass.
“Who is Trouble?” asked the lame boy curiously.
“He’s our little brother,” explained Ted, and he told his own name and that of his sister.
“My name’s Hal Chester,” said the lame boy, in his turn. “I live in New York. I was sent to this place to get cured. It isn’t exactly a hospital, and yet it’s like one. It’s a Home where lame boys and girls are cured.”
“Do they cure ’em?” asked Jan softly.
“Oh, yes. Heaps and heaps of ’em. They’re going to cure me, they say. And I guess they will, for I’m a lot better than when I came. If I had a football——”
“Oh, yes. I was going to get Trouble’s,” interrupted Ted. “He has a little rubber one he brings with him. We don’t like him to, as it’s always falling out of the wagon, and then we’ve got to stop and pick it up. But he brought it this morning. Hi, Trouble, where’s the football?” he called to his little brother.
“I bring it. You play game?” he asked, for he loved to kick the blown-up ball about.
“Well, maybe a little one,” promised Jan. “Are you sure it won’t hurt you?” she asked Hal, as Ted caught the ball Trouble rolled over to him.