CHAPTER XIV.
Aleck came for news every day for a week before he got any different report, but at last the hard anxious look had lifted a little from Joan’s face, and she almost smiled as she saw who was there.
“The bairnie’s waked once mair,” she said, “and lifts his een at us as if he kenned wha were his friends again, and the doctor’ll no object to his having a pillow on the lounge for a bit change, the day. But the pain is unco dree, and shows no sign o’ wearin’ out for many a day, though the Lord suld een show pity and tak it frae him at the last. But ye’ll come again, and I mak nae doubt we’ll soon find the day when ye can speak wi’ him yoursel’, and get his ain thanks for all your kindness.”
But the doctor was not quite ready for any more experiments just yet. If he had been sure that Creepy had only seen Aleck at the window, he would gladly have tried, but he would have liked to keep every remembrance of the school out of his sight for ever.
But in a few days more, it showed plainly that something must be done, or he would have only the same little patient as a year ago on his hands, and with nothing like the hope there was of better things.
“They’ve done their work well, those boys,” he said. “I should say that was the same grieved hopeless face, the same old pain, and the same silent matter-of-course bearing of it, that I found under that dismal old butternut-tree a year ago. The only difference is, it’s got a ten-times stronger hold than it ever had before, the pain as well as the rest of it, and I’m afraid it’s a life business this time. I can’t get a word from the child unless I fight for it, and I don’t dare try even that, for fear of that miserable ‘all but me,’ that’s taken possession of him again. I wish those fellows at the school could just once see the smile he tries to give me, as if he wanted things to be comfortable with me, though there was no hope for him in the world. And there isn’t, if time and doing just the right thing don’t bring him up out of this better than I see any promise of just now; and what that right thing is, isn’t so easy to decide from one day to another.”
The doctor paced the room two or three times, and then stopped and shot one of the old quick looks and warming smiles into Creepy’s face.
“See here, little man, do you know what friend has been bringing you these flowers ever since you were sick?”
Creepy shook his head.