“Say, you can kick!” cried Ted admiringly, as Hal came back to the cushion on which Jan insisted that he take his seat.
“Oh, yes. There’s lots worse things than being lame. I’m ever so much stronger in my one good leg than some boys are in their two. I can stand on it all day and not get tired. It comes in good when you’re waiting for the circus parade,” he added with a laugh.
“I should think you’d want to have two legs alike,” said Jan.
“I do, and some day I’m going to have, Dr. Wade says. But I just have to wait, that’s all,” and he seemed quite cheerful about it. “No use kicking, you know—unless it’s a football,” and he smiled at Ted, who smiled back.
“I didn’t use to have much feeling in my lame foot,” he went on. “And that was a good thing, ’cause when anybody stepped on my toes it didn’t hurt. But it does now, and that’s a good sign, Dr. Wade says. Well, I’ve got to be getting back, they’re calling me to dinner. I’m glad I saw you,” and he got up from the cushion.
“Calling you to dinner?” asked Jan. “I didn’t hear anyone call.”
“It’s that flag over there,” and Hal pointed to one now waving from a tall pole in front of the Home. It had not been flying before, the Curlytops were sure. At any rate they had not noticed the flag until Hal spoke.
“That’s a sort of dinner bell,” the lame boy went on. “Some of the boys and girls go off in the woods or fields between meals, or else the nurses take them, and they are so far off they can’t hear a bell or a horn. But they can always see the flag, ’cause it’s so high up, and so when the banner is hoisted on the pole we know it’s meal-time. So I’ll be hopping along,” and with a wave of his hand he started across the field, having climbed the fence as nimbly as before.
“Will you come here this afternoon?” asked Ted.
“Maybe. Will you be here?”