“He came back from school Monday for Easter vacation and they are afraid of pneumonia. I don’t understand how he could have gotten it, but I’m sure if anybody could pull him through it would be Mrs. Ellis,” said Ralph.
But even with the best nursing and care, things looked bad for Billie. It was supper time before Mrs. Craig returned. The reunion between mother and daughter was indeed a happy one. “I can’t tell you how I feel to have you back again, darling.”
“And it’s wonderful to be back. I missed you all so.”
Doris was indignant and stunned at the blow that had fallen on her friend, Billie. She sputtered, “The idea that Billie should have to be sick during vacation. How long will he be in bed, Mother?”
“I don’t know, dear,” Mrs. Craig said. “He’s strong and husky, but it will be some time, I’m afraid, before he’ll be well again. Dr. Gallup came right over.”
“That’s good,” Kit put in. “He’ll get him well in no time. I don’t think there ever was a doctor so set on making people well. I’d rather see him come in the door, no matter what was wrong with me, sit down and tell me I had just a little distemper, open his black case, and mix me up that everlasting mess that tastes like cinnamon and sugar, than have a whole line of city specialists tapping me.”
Doris and Tommy clung closely to Jean, taking her and Ralph around the place to show her all the new chicks, orphans and otherwise. Woodhow really was showing signs of full return this year for the care and love spent on its rehabilitation. The fruit trees, after Buzzy’s pruning and fertilizing, and general treatment that made them look like swaddled babies, were blossoming profusely, and on the south slope of the field along the river, rows and rows of young peach trees had been set out. The garden too, had come in for its share of attention. Doris loved flowers, and had worked there more diligently than she usually could be coaxed to on any sort of real labor. She had cleared away the old dead plants first, and with Tommy’s help had plowed up the central plot, taking care to save all the perennials.
“You know what I wish, Mom,” said Doris, standing with earth-stained fingers in the midst of the tangle of old vines and bushes. “I wish we could lay out paths and put stones down on them, flat stones, I mean, like flags. And have flower beds with borders. Could we, do you think?”
Her earnestness made Mrs. Craig smile, but she agreed to the plan, and Becky helped out with slips from her flower store, so that the prospect for a garden was very good. And later Buzzy Hancock came up with Sally to advise and help too. The year out West had turned the country boy into a stalwart, independent individual whom even Sally regarded with some respect. He was taller than before, broad-shouldered, and sure of himself.
“I think Ralph has done wonders for him,” Sally said. “Mother thinks so too. He talks so enthusiastically about the West that she doesn’t seem to mind going out there any more, after seeing what it’s made of Buzzy. And Ralph says we’ll always keep the home here so that when we want to come back, we can. I think he likes Elmhurst. He says it never seems like home way out West. You need to walk on the earth where your fathers and grandfathers have trod, and even to breathe the same air. Mom says the only place she hates to leave behind is our little family burial plot over in the woods.”