They had not much farther to go. To their surprise the lame pigeon turned in at a driveway and flew toward a large brick building enclosed by high walls.
“What can it mean?” said Hannah. Perhaps the little lame pigeon didn’t mean anything, after all.
But the little lame pigeon did mean something. He had recognized the children as the ones who took little Billy home when his mother had fallen in the street, and he had taken this means to induce them to follow him and discover the sick woman at one of the windows of the hospital. With a noisy fluttering of his wings he flew up to one of the windows and alighted on the sill. A pale, sick-looking woman was seated in a chair close to the window, and the children saw a nurse come to the window and open it. In hopped the little lame pigeon and alighted on an arm of the sick woman’s chair.
“Why, Johnny!” exclaimed Hannah. “Do you mind the face of the sick woman up there? It is blind Billy’s mother.”
“How do you know it is?” asked Johnny. “You never saw her but the once.”
“I know that, but I minded her hair, because it is just like Billy’s, so soft and curly, and she looks just the way Billy’s mother looked.”
“Perhaps they brought her here because it is a place where they put sick people,” said Johnny, who was convinced by his sister’s positive manner.
“Now, if we only knew where Billy is, it would be all right,” said Hannah.
“Perhaps she has found him,” said Johnny.
“I don’t believe she has, because she would look happy, and just see the sad look of her!”