Jane came up at noon to bring Ernest his dinner—a dinner in which a generous quarter of the custard pie played an important part. Sherm and Carol would come right from school she told him. Chicken Little had established herself as head nurse out of school hours. She felt very important and amused Ernest with her airs.
The boys were good as their word that afternoon and she met them with a life-like imitation of her mother’s manner, admonishing them not to get Ernest excited. As a result the boys lumbered in self-conscious and awkward. Never having paid a sick-room visit before, they were rather overpowered by Ernest’s bandaged eyes and the twilight gloom the doctor prescribed. So much so in fact, that they nearly defeated the object of their visit, which was to cheer Ernest up. Indeed they were so stiff and sympathetic that Ernest gruffly requested them to drop that and tell him about school. Tongues limbered up immediately at this, for each boy had a grievance.
“You can be jolly glad you ain’t there. Old Goggle-eyes gave us two pages of Algebra—20 problems! I spent a whole hour on the first ten and I’m shaky about them now. Oh, he’s a honey, he is—the dried up old crank. I’ll bet he was old when Methuselah was born.”
“Well, I’d rather tackle Goggle-eyes and minus X than write compositions for Miss Halliday on Spring Flowers—Sper-ing Flow-ers,” Carol simpered gently, and, letting his hands fall limp from the wrists, fluttered imaginary skirts in a fantastic promenade across the room.
“‘You must cultivate the love of the be-utiful—contemplate birds—and lovely flowers and express what they mean to you,’” he quoted in a high pitched voice. “Holy smoke, I had a notion to tell her that spring flowers meant digging dandelions at five cents a thousand, when I wanted to go fishing! She might at least save ’em till the ground thaws—it’s colder than Greenland out today.”
“Yes, Father says we’re in for a blizzard tonight.”
“You might tell her the blizzard nipped all the flowers in the bud, Carol.”
“Nope, I’ll put it on the list of things I’m thankful for next Thanksgiving, that there aren’t any plaguey spring flowers in bloom to write about.”
“Say, Pat’s got your seat. But he wouldn’t let Old Goggle-eyes take your things out. He said there was plenty of room for them. He’s got them stacked up in one end of the desk all ship-shape. He’s going to be on our nine next summer.”
The boys were performing their mission nobly. Ernest began to feel actually consoled for missing school.