Dr. Pierce was the Westabrook family physician. He had known Maida all her life and called her Pinkwink. He too had often visited the Little Shop; had been one of its advisors.
The children deserted Billy for a moment and threw themselves pell-mell on the old physician. He stood braced for the shock which made every one of the tight gray curls on his head quiver and brought the twinkliest of twinkles to his happy old eyes.
“Well, Pinkwink!” he exclaimed, “is this the little girl who used to have cheeks as white as paper and eyes like a burnt hole in a blanket? And are these those pale, washed-out, colorless, slim-jim-looking city children I used to know?”
He hugged all the girls impartially, shook hands with the boys; then he too made the rounds of the place.
He played all his old games on them; drawing Betsy out to tell her exploits; listening with great enjoyment to Molly and Timmie; and never ceasing to pretend that Dorothy and Mabel were one girl with a magic power of being in two places at once.
“You must come oftener, Dr. Pierce,” Maida said when at last they found themselves seated in the living room.
“Oh I’m coming often enough,” Dr. Pierce said. “You’ll get good and tired of me before I have finished with you. I’m coming at regular intervals to see that you don’t drown yourselves or get ivy-poison, or sun-stroke or lockjaw or any of those things that children are so fond of. I shall make regular inspections. In fact I am going to make one this visit. Now that I speak of it, this strikes me as a good time. Line up over there against the wall, all of you, and stick out your tongues.”
Life fell into regular habits after a while. For work—two hours every morning, except on Thursdays, took care of that. On Thursdays, however, it was a matter of several hours. For play—it seemed as though the rest of the long golden days was all play.
After the household tasks came bathing which had become a habit as regular as eating. Bathing was almost the best fun they had—especially for Dicky.
Dicky soon rejected the water wings. He was swimming now—not of course as fast or as well as the others—but swimming with that fresh joy which only the amateur knows. The others were perfecting strokes of various kinds and practising fancy diving of various sorts. Arthur was of course the best and strongest performer among them. Maida would never be more than a fair swimmer nor Harold; but Rosie had soon out-distanced Laura, was beginning to work into Arthur’s class. However Laura was still, would probably always be, the most graceful of them all.