"Two of the surgeons came out and examined the machine, and they found that there is only a foot of space between the lowest part of the car and the ground.
"'It is the most miraculous escape I ever saw,' said one of them, 'to run over a five-year-old boy and not even scratch him. To make the story quite complete you ought to claim to be Christian Scientists. That is the sort of game they always play on a credulous public.'
"'We are both Christian Scientists,' said Noel, in his most polite manner, 'and I am deeply impressed with your involuntary tribute to its efficacy in case of accident.'
"Between you and me, I don't believe that doctor got his mouth together again without help.
"Well, we had the greatest time when we got back. First, we took every child on the scene--and I believe there must have been a hundred--to an ice-cream saloon and treated them. And while they were waiting their turns, Noel filled the White Moth with them and gave them a ride. I never had so much fun in my life. I went home with the mother, with a quart of ice-cream in each hand, and got her to tell me the story of her life. Poor soul! She has nine children, but she loves each one as if it were her all. Noel and I are both going to do something for that child. His name is Dewey Dolan.
"When it was all over, and we were sneaking along back streets to get home without being seen, for we were both sights, and the Moth will have to be done over, I began to think of the way I had acted, and I have made Noel promise never to take me out again unless I have my Amityville tag on, so that, if I go crazy out loud again, they will know where I have escaped from.
"But Noel, dear old thing, confessed that he was declaring the truth no less, only in a quieter way, and we both firmly believe that our little knowledge of Science and our understanding, incomplete though it is, are what turned that calamity into a blessing, for a blessing I am determined to crown it.
"What do you think of my idea? You know how I have always been carried away over children,--how their sufferings and deaths have almost turned me into an infidel,--how the carelessness of parents and nurses has almost driven me insane,--well, if they can be protected by Christian Science thought and healed by mind, why not hasten the day by establishing a Christian Science kindergarten, and, if it succeeds, by a series of them? There must be plenty of kindergartners among Scientists who would welcome a combination of their work, and in the crowded tenement districts it would be a boon. But, oh, how carefully we must go, for the poor will only allow themselves to be helped in their own blind way. Tell me if you think there is any hope for the philanthropic end of it. I am going to open one for the children of ready-made Scientists in my own house,--you know I studied kindergartning, and I have ten already promised. I shall have no trouble about assistants for my Fifth Avenue school. But the other place is the one my heart is in. Tell me what you think of that.
"Rosemary is coming back here to live. Her husband is a Christian Scientist, and has gone into business in New York, so I know she will help me, but, oh, Carolina, you will never know how I miss you! New York is not the same place since you left it. You have such a way of dominating every spot you are in by your own personality. Does this hot air sound natural from Kate Howard?
"I am crazy--fairly daffy--over your success in the turpentine, and daddy goes around swelling out his chest and strutting like a turkey gobbler. Why, Carolina, do you realize that you will not only make yourself rich and anybody you choose to let into the game, but that you will be opening up by force, so to speak, with your Educational Turpentine Corner, an industry which will revolutionize the entire turpentine pine country? It is a big project, my dear, to have emanated from the brain of a woman. But, oh, won't the papers fairly eat you raw!