“Chapman,” said Mrs. Norwood, “you and Bill bring him in. We will take him up to bed.” She started the women servants to making indoor preparations. She, too, knew the millionaire’s son and liked him.
“Jessie,” Mrs. Norwood commanded her daughter, “go to the ’phone and telephone to Doctor Ankers. Perhaps you had better call Doctor Leffert, too.”
“Yes, Momsy. And I’ll get Stratfordtown on the line and tell somebody there—somebody of the family, I mean.”
Jessie and her mother hurried in ahead of the men bearing Mark Stratford. Amy, having extinguished the fire and now having nothing better to do, followed after, carrying the discarded flying helmet.
Jessie ran at once to the telephone. “It would be great,” she thought, “if we had a sending instrument as well as a receiving radio set. We could broadcast the news of Mark’s accident and his family would get it promptly.”
However, she had enough to do during the next few minutes calling the two doctors and telling them what was wanted of them and urging the necessity for haste. It took longer to reach the Stratford home beyond Stratfordtown. And there Jessie could talk only with a servant whose sympathy, if he felt any, for his young master’s case was hidden behind the unemotional exterior of the well-trained English servant.
She knew that Mark Stratford had no mother, and although his father and his other relatives might consider him the apple of their eyes, they were not likely to influence him against taking risks. Mark, had he had a mother, would possibly, for her sake, have been a little less reckless in his activities as an aviator after the war was ended.
“And just see what has come of it, poor fellow,” murmured the Roselawn girl, as she hung up the receiver and enclosed the telephone instrument again in the bisque doll which housed it on the hall table. “Suppose he is killed or seriously hurt? Dear, dear! What a frightful tragedy!”
“It’s all of that,” half sobbed Amy, who was standing behind her chum. She dabbed her eyes with her handkerchief. “And your radio antenna, Jess, is completely wrecked.”