“The boys!” exclaimed Joan; “we want nane o’ their messages, but if ye will tak them ane from mysel’, ye might tell them—”
She checked herself. “Na, na, that were a sinfu’ thought; I maun forgie as I hope to be forgi’en; but it’s a cruel sight to look upon a little life that the doctor had been cherishing and nourishing as no other man could or would hae done, and see it lyin’ there now a crushed and blighted thing.”
“Is he too ill?” ventured Aleck once more; “do you think he will be too ill when he wakes to care for these flowers my sister has sent him? He has seemed to like them once or twice before.”
“And were it your very sel’,” exclaimed Joan, throwing open the door, “were it your very sel’ that made the bairnie’s heart sae glad mony a time, when he’d never kenned before sae muckle as the fashion God made a flower to grow in? Come inside, then, and see the doctor himsel’. It will do his heart good to see a face that has once looked friendly on the bairn.”
“No,” said Aleck, “I wont come in now, thank you, but I would like to come every day for a while and ask how he is.”
“Come, then,” said Joan, “and as often as ye like, and the first day he’s weel eneugh to speak to ony friend but the twa that’s truest to him, ye shall e’en talk wi’ him a bit yoursel’.”
Joan wondered what made the doctor start, just the merest trifle, as she carried the flowers to him and told him where they came from, and she didn’t hear him say to himself, “So, so! the little fellow has been thinking he hasn’t a friend in the world, and he’s richer than I am this very moment!” She marched off up stairs again to take another look at Creepy, and make sure the medicine was doing its work, and that he was still asleep. But the doctor had looked out for that; and wherever Creepy might be wandering, this world with all its ugliness and sharp places was shut out; perfect rest for body and heart was the only hope for saving them from going down together under the shock they had received, and not until late the next morning did Creepy open his eyes with anything like a clear look at things around him.
There stood the doctor, looking as strong and as fresh and exactly the same in every way as the first day he saw him under the old butternut.
“Well, little man, and so you have waked at last. You and I both had a nap of it last night; but the sun is shining and the birds are singing for us once more.”
“All but me!”