The terrified Shirley began to scream more loudly and Aunt Trudy walked up and down the floor moaning that it was awful!
"I'll get Hugh!" Rosemary flew to the desk 'phone.
She had heard him say where he meant to make a call and she hoped desperately that he might be at that house or that she might be able to leave a message for him if he had not yet arrived. But the doctor had "come and gone" Mrs. Jackson said. He was going to stop at the Winters, he said. Yes, they had a telephone.
Three more numbers Rosemary called, before she gained a ray of comfort. At the fourth farmhouse the farmer's wife said that the doctor was expected back in twenty minutes with a new brace he had wanted them to try for their son's foot. He had offered to bring it to them from the post-office because her husband was sick himself with a cold—
Rosemary managed to check the good woman's flow of conversation and to ask her to tell Doctor Hugh that he was wanted at home, when he came. Shirley, tell him, had cut her hand.
Shirley's cries, subdued while Rosemary talked over the 'phone, burst out again as the receiver clicked in place.
"Oh, dearest, hush!" implored Rosemary. "It doesn't hurt you so very much, does it? Can't you be quiet till Hugh comes and makes you all well?"
"It bleeds and bleeds," screamed Shirley, and Aunt Trudy groaned that the child would bleed to death before their eyes.
"I'll wash it and bind it up myself," declared Rosemary, distracted by the noise and confusion. "I don't know anything about such things, but I think I can make it stop bleeding."
"I can't help you," said Aunt Trudy hastily. "I faint the minute I see blood. My knees are weak now. Don't ask me to hold her, will you, Rosemary?"