“Weel, weel,” said Joan, “its no becoming for me to be disputing wi’ a doctor about his patient; but if any harm comes, it may need doctor and nurse baith to bring things right again.”
“We wont look for anything of that kind,” said the doctor; “and as for ‘bringing things right,’ I don’t see that much help is needed from anybody just now. Did you ever think the boy would stand as straight, or walk as fast, as you see him to-day? It’s about time to say Good-by to that name of his, I think, though I don’t know exactly where to look for another.”
“And what need hae ye o’ anither, if anither means aught different frae your ain?” said Joan. “Havena ye as fair a name as the world turns its ear to, and dinna ye intend keeping the bairn near eneugh yoursel’ to let him hae a share in it? What harm wad come to ony o’ us if folk should learn to ca’ him Thorndyke?”
“None in the world,” said the doctor, laughing, “and if you and he are agreed, we’ll call it settled.”
CHAPTER XI.
The hurrying, scurrying, scrambling stream of boys was once more leaping and pushing, running and walking up the schoolhouse-stairs, where Tom had waited so long in vain hope that Hal would “move on.” There were not so very many of them, not more than thirty-five or forty at the most; but there was something in the way they were getting up stairs that would have made any one who wasn’t used to it sure there were legs and boots enough for fifty or a hundred. They subsided considerably at the schoolroom-door, though not altogether, as the bell had not yet rung, but one by one, as they passed in, they seemed struck into dumb astonishment at what they saw. It was only Creepy standing by his desk while the professor looked over his books, and talked pleasantly of the place he had better take in the classes. But the queer, twisted little form, the great head with its high, white forehead and brilliant eyes, and the color coming and going like a living thing in the pale cheeks, seemed to put a spell on the boys, and held their eyes as if they had seen a hobgoblin, until the professor turned his own upon them with such a flash and frown as sent them off to their seats and their own affairs in a twinkling. But Creepy hardly heard what the professor was saying; the rush had taken his breath away, and though he had not dared look up as it came, he felt every step that passed near him, and his heart was throbbing again as it had not since the day when he crept out to his little room after the first visit from the doctor.
And it would not be quiet after the bell had rung, and every one was so busy that he had ventured as many glances as he liked about the room. Was this school? Were these the boys he was to know and call his schoolmates and companions? But so many! Such a great crowd! He had not thought so many boys ever got together in one school; he had hardly thought there were as many in the city! How should he ever come to know one from the other? how would he ever dare to speak to any of them? Oh, why did he come away from the doctor and Joan? He felt happy, and remembered that he was one of the princes when he was with them; and the professor, too, he did not mind; the doctor and he had had such a pleasant talk when the doctor came to introduce him, and he had said so many kind things already. No, he should never be afraid of him, but there were too many of these boys, and still more in the next room.
His head felt dizzy and he laid it down upon his desk, and listened to the hum a while with his eyes shut. How was he ever going to study in the midst of it?