“Waste! And wha kens better than yoursel’ that it would be neither waste nor vanity to ha’ things fitting and becoming and commanding the respect that’s due a high calling like your ain? And what great physician’s house did I ever see among my ain at home that had na his footman or two to open the door before ever a body had time to lay hold upon the handle o’ the bell?”
“Suppose I get one then?” asked the doctor, looking very gravely in her face.
“You’re no serious,” she said; “you’re no so easy to persuade, or to come round to the sound o’ reason a’ in the moment a body just sets it before your een.”
“No,” said the doctor, “I don’t suppose I am, but the truth is I’ve been thinking of the same thing myself. But you know,” and the doctor got up, laid down his book and shook himself, “you know, Joan, every ladder must have its lower rounds, and you must not expect all the glory of midday, when the sun is just getting above the horizon. Now suppose my new man should be rather small and rather young, so young in fact that it would be a good thing for him to go to school, out of office hours. That wouldn’t make any difference, I suppose, in the welcome you would give him, or the kindness you would show him when he came in your way?”
Joan looked doubtful.
“It’s no a’ the gither what I wad choose,” she said, “but half a bannock’s better than nae loaf at a’, and young folk grow, if you do but gie ’em time. But he suld be a braw laddie, weel favored and wi’ good back and legs.”
“Weel favored enough,” said the doctor laughing, “but as for the back and legs, they are good in their way; and getting better every day, but I fear we can’t make any more of them than the best a hunchback ever had.”
Joan’s face grew white. A hunchback opening the doctor’s door? She would open it herself if she were a hundred years old, sooner than that should happen!
“I’ll tell you about him,” went on the doctor, not seeming to notice her; and beginning as far back as the night in Ben’s room, he gave Joan a running sketch of the lame child as he had found him, of the dreary life, the great wistful eyes, the pain that was never tired, and the sensitive soul, shrinking away behind the “all but me” that had seemed always to rise like stony walls before it.
“Now a strong man with any soul in him can’t see a child in a prison like that, without wanting to knock the gates down for him, if he can,” went on the doctor, “and that’s what I’ve been trying to do the last six months, with the help of all hands out there; and I don’t think we’ve made a bad piece of work of it as far as we’ve gone. I’ve got the little fellow on his feet again, and he’s had more than one walk already, since the snow is passing off, and he’s beginning to believe all I’ve told him, or thinks he does, but it’s more like a story than anything else, so far, and I want to make it a reality. I want to get him away from that place out there, and get him in here where things are civilized, and put him, as soon as he gets a little more strength, into the best school there is, and let him measure himself with other boys of his age, and see what he can make of himself and the world he’s come into. And I don’t see any way to do this, but to indulge myself in an office-boy for certain hours of the day. The child must have a shelter, and some one to look to; and he’ll want more than I can be to him too. A friend something like yourself for instance, Joan;” and the doctor darted one of those quick looks and wonderful smiles at the housekeeper, that always made Creepy’s heart leap to his throat. Joan’s face ceased to be white long before the doctor had finished, and there was something the matter with her spectacles; she couldn’t see well through them, and there was a struggle going on behind them that was plain enough. It was a drawn battle for a few moments more, and Joan flourished the hearth-broom again, as if determined to knock over one side or the other with it, but at last she spoke.