Aunt Hannah was a tiny woman, and the children, small though they were, did not find it an exceedingly difficult task to raise her bodily from the floor.
Then Gladys lighted a lamp, and it was seen that, in addition to the injuries received by the fall, Aunt Hannah had been grievously burned.
“Yes, I’m in some pain,” she said in reply to Seth’s anxious questioning; “but now that the house has been saved I have no right to complain. Get some flour, Gladys, and while you are putting it on the worst of the burns, perhaps Seth will run over to Mrs. Dean an’ ask if she can come here a few minutes.”
“Where does Mis’ Dean live?” the lad asked hurriedly, starting toward the door; and he was already outside when Gladys replied:
“It’s the first house past the grove where Snip and I went this afternoon!”
Seth gave no heed to his lameness as he ran at full speed down the road; the thought that now was the time when he might in some slight degree repay Aunt Hannah for having given shelter to him and Snip, lending speed to his feet.
The Dean family had not yet retired when he arrived at the farmhouse, and, stopping only sufficiently long to tell in fewest possible words of what had happened, Seth ran back to help Gladys care for the invalid, for he was feverishly eager to have some part in the nursing.
Aunt Hannah was on the couch with her wounds partially bandaged when the boy returned, and although her suffering must have been severe, that placid face was as serene as when he bade her good-night.
“Mis’ Dean is comin’ right away. What can I do?”
“Nothing more, my dear,” the little woman replied quietly. “You have been of such great service to me this night that I can never repay you.”