"All girls ought to know first-aid," affirmed the doctor. "My sisters are not going to be left helpless when an accident happens."
"But you can't say it's altogether the first aid," persisted Will Mears. "Look at Nina Edmonds; she might learn the whole programme, and then, when something did happen, she'd run around like a chicken with its head off! First-aid doesn't teach you to keep your wits about you and not to scream and act like a lunatic generally, Doctor Willis."
"Well, of course, one needs character as well as first-aid knowledge," admitted Doctor Hugh, smiling a little, "but if one knows what to do, there's no temptation to wring the hands and scream, Will. Rosemary knew what to do, therefore she did it."
But Will Mears refused to give all the credit to first-aid and indeed all the boys and girls who had seen Rosemary care for Fannie, were loud in their praise of her fearlessness and skill. Mrs. Mears sent for her to come and see Fannie, as soon as the patient grew stronger, and though Rosemary rather dreaded the visit, she came away feeling that next term in school she and Fannie would be, if not close friends, at least on amiable terms instead of irritatingly hostile which had been their covert attitude this last year.
For it was time to think of school as "next year," since this term was so nearly over. The Eastshore schools closed the middle of June and the week after the picnic the pupils were plunged into the throes of the final examinations. Even Shirley went about anxiously wondering if she would "pass" and asking each of her sisters if they thought she had had good marks during the year.
"I just have to be promoted," she would say over and over. "I just have to be promoted, 'cause my mother is coming home."
"When's Mother coming home?" was Sarah's cry. "You said in a year, Hugh, and it's a year this month."
"I think we may look for her home sometime this month," said the doctor one day when Sarah had asked him for the twentieth time. "You mustn't expect her to keep a calendar, Sarah and come back on the exact day she went away. It may be a few days longer, dear."
"She went away a year ago this Wednesday," said Rosemary, half to herself.
"Has it been a long year, Rosemary?" asked her brother, quickly.