The distance to the ground was not great, but it was far enough for Dicky to be peppered with bumps and pretty well shaken. The cow paid no farther attention to him but walked off to a spot where she might be free from annoyance, and the little boy lay for some time on the ground before he could pull himself together and go to his grandfather’s. By the time he reached there, his bruises were already turning black and he was interesting both to himself and to his relatives, although he was manfully keeping back his tears. The doctor ordered him to bed for a day or two, and now he lay on a cot at one side of the large room which served as the family hospital, and Ethel Blue at the other, comparing their wounds, and receiving the attention of Mrs. Morton. She had finished reading one of the Br’er Rabbit stories to them when Ethel Blue introduced the subject that was so constantly in her mind.
“Did I tell you how I happened to fall off the terrace wall?” she asked her aunt.
“I wondered how you did it; you are usually so sure-footed.”
“I was talking with Miss Daisy about my going to live with Father by-and-by. You know I never thought of it until the other night when we were all together on the porch and Helen,—wasn’t it?—said something about it. I wish I didn’t have to wait to finish school before I can go to him.”
“Are you in such a hurry to leave us?” said Mrs. Morton, with a little sigh for the many years of loving care she had spent over this child, who was to her like one of her own.
Ethel Blue was conscience-stricken.
“You know, Aunt Marion, I love all of you just like my own people. Only it seems so wonderful to think about being with Father all the time that I can’t get it out of my mind—now it’s in my mind.”
“There are a good many things to be considered,” answered Mrs. Morton. “You know that an officer often has to be away from home and your father wouldn’t like to leave you alone.”
Ethel Blue’s face fell.
“If I only had somebody like Dicky’s Mary to stay with me,” she said, referring to the nurse who had always taken care of Dicky, and who had lived on with the family after he was too old to need a nurse.