“What? I can’t hear a word you say.” She jiggled the receiver hook. “Speak louder, please. What? Dr. Madden? What did you say? Dr. Madden what?... No, all I can hear is ‘Dr. Madden.’ Just a minute,” and trembling like a leaf, she partly turned and motioned to me. “There’s a boy here, and I’ll let him talk. Maybe he has sharper ears than me.”
The receiver switched hands.
“It’s long distance,” she told me nervously. “And I think it’s Pardyville, but I’m not certain. Oh, dear! How helpless people do get when they grow old. I hope it isn’t bad news. If the call is from Pardyville, no doubt the doctor has found Miss Ruth. And certainly that isn’t bad news.”
“Hello,” says I, jamming the receiver against one ear and prodding a finger into the other, as I had seen Dad do on long-distance calls. “Who’s speaking?”
“This is the St. Elizabeth hospital at Pardyville,” came a faint distant voice. “Can you hear me?”
“Yes,” says I.
A hospital! That wasn’t a very favorable start, I thought, for good news. We never had dreamed that the granddaughter, in getting into some kind of a possible accident, had been taken to a hospital.
“We have an accident case here—Dr. Madden of Neponset Corners. Do you know him?”
“Yes,” says I, with my heart thumping.
“His automobile turned turtle a mile outside of town, and he is quite seriously injured. Knowing that he might not survive the operation, he wants to talk with Mrs. Ivor Doane. It must be important, for he insists on doing the talking himself, though he is in a very weakened condition. Is Mrs. Doane there?”