“Why ah gwine wor’y ’bout him fo’?” demanded the old negress, obstinately.
“My mother loved him, Serena, and so do I. Won’t you take care of him for us?”
This plea weakened her stand. “Ah promises to do de bes’ ah knows how fo’ a w’ile but ef yo’all stays too long ah gwine pack ma duds an’ come whar you is. Yas’m.”
Virginia awakened the next morning with a bad headache. Serena busied herself around her mistress and finally persuaded her to take a long walk. The brisk exercise in the fresh air refreshed the girl, and she decided to go to the hospital and see Joe Curtis for the last time before she left South Ridgefield.
In the hall of the institution she met Dr. Jackson.
“You should have seen my patients this morning,” he told her. “Those infants are a gay lot. They cried so loud that they gave me a headache. None of that fretful weeping with which they serenaded me last week. That trip up the river helped those kids wonderfully, and, with the cool weather we are having now, some of those youngsters are going to see snow fly who never would have done so if it hadn’t been for the voyage of the Nancy Jane.”
Miss Knight came up and slipped an arm about Virginia’s waist. “Tell the doctor and his babies good bye. He will talk a week about them if you’ll stand and listen to him,” she laughed, and as she drew the girl away, explained, “I have a surprise for you, dear.”
“I can guess it. The room for the motorcyclists is ready.”
“No, you’re wrong. I’ll have to show you.” The nurse led the girl through a door which opened upon a small porch and pointed over the railing at the grounds which, lay on the side of the building. “There,” she said proudly. “Look.”
Virginia did as she was told. In the shade of a tree was Joe Curtis seated with outstretched leg in a roller chair. He answered their waving hands, and his face lighted up with a smile of pleasure which still remained when the girl descended the stairs and came to him.