“Is anything the matter?” whispered Mrs. Brown, for when she and her husband looked in the room the injured man seemed to be quiet and there was no longer the murmur of voices.
“He’s all right now,” said Uncle Tad in low tones. “But he was a bit restless a moment ago. He was sort of talking in his sleep, I guess, about his missing son and the lost treasure.”
“Do you really think he lost a treasure?” asked Mr. Brown.
“Well,” said Uncle Tad slowly, “you know how it is with sick folks. Sometimes they imagine things. I know how it was in the army. Sometimes the men that were hurt would talk a lot about things that had never happened. They were wandering in their minds.”
“But Mr. Pott lost his son—he told us so,” remarked Bunny. He and Sue stood just outside the door.
“Yes,” agreed Sue, “he did. When he fell off the horse and came into our yard and sat on the pile of grass, he said he’d lost his son.”
“Well, maybe he did, and a treasure, too,” agreed Mr. Brown. “Perhaps in the morning he’ll be better able to tell us more about himself and how he happened to come here.”
“He came here because he heard there was a sailor living here,” explained Mrs. Brown. “He thought it might be his son who had been rescued from the wreck of the Mary Bell. But the only sailor we have here is Jed Winkler.”
“And he’s too old to have been this man’s son,” said Mr. Brown.
The sick man had grown quiet again, and Mrs. Brown sent Julia, the maid, in to watch by his couch while Uncle Tad had a rest.