It was the gentlest and tenderest of touches, but it was hard for the lame child to bear. He hesitated, but the doctor waited for an answer.
“Yes,” he said.
“Ah! and now here, please. Do you feel this same pain now?” as he removed the touch to another point.
“Yes.”
“And here too?” moving it again.
“Yes.”
“Just as I thought. Now that’s all wrong. We must put a stop to that somehow or other. I wonder if I can’t get this jacket on again without as much trouble as it would give you?” and the doctor took up the shapeless little thing as gently as Ben ever handled the choicest hot-house plant. Creepy never could tell how it went on, only the wish ran through his mind that the doctor would always do it for him. It was so easy, and not a bit of the pain he always felt so long after he put it on himself.
“Don’t you think that is a pretty horse of mine?” began the doctor, sitting down again on Ben’s seat. “We must have a ride after him together some day. Not just now, perhaps—it is going to be cold very soon-but when the warm spring days come again, then we’ll try it. And you’ll be having a good pull at your school-books in the meantime, I suppose. Boys of your age are all busy with their arithmetics and ugly things of that kind, eh?”
Creepy shook his head.
“All but me.”