He gave some directions to a clerk who hurried out to them and then they drove on. The moonlight sifted through the trees and flickered on the road. A cool breeze stimulated James's skin to a shiver. On they went, faster and faster. He'd had a mighty good time all the evening, James thought, and Father was a crackerjack.
"LOOK OUT, boy," his father's voice rang through his thoughts. The car struck the curb with a shock that loosened his grasp on the wheel and tossed him into the air. As he flew up he tried to say, "I cut the corner too close that time," but he never knew whether he said it or not, for his voice seemed to fail him and his father could not recall hearing such a remark.
It was quite an hour later when he came to himself. To his amazement he found himself in his own room. The light was shaded, his mother with tears still filling her eyes was beside him, and his father and a young man whom he recognized as the new doctor who had just come to Glen Point, were putting away instruments. He tried to move in the bed and found that his leg was extraordinarily heavy.
"Did I bust my leg?" he inquired briefly.
"You did," returned his father with equal brevity.
"Weren't you hurt?"
"A scratch on the forehead, that's all. Doctor Hanson is going to patch me up now."
The two physicians left the room and James did not know until long after that the scratch required several stitches to mend.
His illness was a severe trial to James. His Scottish blood taught him that his punishment fitted his crime—that he was hurt as a direct result of doing what he knew was likely to bring that result. He said to himself that he was going to take his punishment like a man. But oh, the days were long! The Glen Point boys came in when they thought of it—there was some one almost every day—but the Indian Summer was unusually prolonged and wonderfully beautiful this year, and it was more than any one could ask in reason that the boys should give up outdoors to stay with him. Roger and Helen and the Ethels and Dorothy came over from Rosemont when they could, but their daily work had to be done and they had only a few minutes to stay after the long trolley trip.
"We must think up something for James to do," Mrs. Hancock told Margaret. "He's tired of reading. He can use his hands. Hasn't your Service Club something that he can work on here?" Margaret thought it had, and the result of the conversation was that Mrs. Hancock went to Rosemont on an afternoon car. The Ethels took her to Mrs. Smith's and Dorothy showed her the accumulation for the Christmas Ship that already was making a good showing in the attic devoted to the work.