“No, I hardly think that,” answered Mr. Martin. “But I believe I will let him stay here, Dr. Whitney. My wife says she and Nora will look after him, and he will be better off than in the hospital, as long as he is not very ill.”
“He is sick mostly because he hasn’t had enough to eat,” said the doctor. “Feed him well, and he’ll soon be all right.”
The doctor went away, after leaving some medicine for the stranger. And stranger he was, since nobody at the Martin house knew him, and Mrs. Ransom, who came over again, after she had found some one to stay in her store for a little while, said she had never seen him around Cresco before.
“And I know ’most everybody in Cresco,” she added, as indeed she did, since many of the fathers and mothers, as well as the boys and girls, bought a good many things in her little shop.
As for the “funny man” himself, he could not tell who he was, for he seemed to be asleep from the time Mr. Martin and Patrick carried him in and put him to bed in a spare room. The man was not really asleep, as Jan and Ted learned later. It was his illness that made him keep his eyes closed, and would not let him talk or hear things that were said.
“Now you children run out to play,” said Mrs. Martin to Ted and Janet, after Dr. Whitney had left. “Take Trouble with you, and look after him. Nora and I are going to be busy with—well, with him,” and she nodded toward the room where the strange man lay so quietly.
“What’s his name?” asked Ted.
“I don’t know, my dear,” answered his mother. “When he wakes up he may tell us. Run out and play now.”
“We’ll go and see if we can’t find Skyrocket,” said Janet.
“Oh, yes! We’ve got to find him!” added Ted.