His Mother was Sitting Beside the Bed
Clang! clang! clang—clang! sounded the ambulance gong, and in less than a few minutes they were at the Dolls’ Hospital.
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The next, morning little Ibee came into his father’s room, where his mother was sitting beside the bed with her scalded arm nicely dressed and bandaged.
“I’m going to be a doctor,” he announced proudly, after bidding his parents good-morning. “This is a dandy place! There aren’t any private rooms for Soami or me, so we’re each in a ward, and there’s a fellow in the men’s ward all done up in bandages. I just wish you could see him! I got Doctor Quickenquack to tell me what kinds they all were and I can’t remember all of them, but I know he said something about triangular and spiral and figure-of-eight bandages. My, that fellow looks fine! He has a broken arm and a broken leg and a dislocated shoulder and a fractured jaw, and his bandages are swell! He did the whole thing by sliding off his barn roof last Sunday when he was putting shingles on it. He says it’s a judgment—whatever that is.”
“Well, for pity’s sake,” exclaimed his mother, “Ibee, how you talk! Do take a breath!”
“Hello, everybody!” said little Soami, running in. “How’s father? Shesa’s fine, Miss Helpem told me. No bones broken except one finger. Shesa’s asleep now, and her finger’s bandaged beautifully!”
“Father’s just about as well as can be expected, dear,” answered their father. “And very thankful none of us are hurt worse.”
“I don’t know,” said Ibee, shaking his head. “Even though my arm aches so, I’d have liked to have had something worth while; for instance, a compound fracture of the thigh. Father’s was only a simple fracture. In a compound fracture the broken bone often comes through the skin, I heard the head nurse say to one of the assistants.”