The accident to young Titus had occurred about noon, when he was on his way home for lunch. It was now seven o’clock in the evening, and Princess Sukey was inquiringly raising her pretty hooded head from her basket to stare about her.
Higby and the maids were serving the dinner. Mrs. Blodgett had had a dreadful fit of hysterics when she heard what had happened to the boy of the household, and had disappeared, no one knew where.
Higby was whispering the news. The Judge had stayed at the hospital till dinner time. The doctors said that there was just a bare chance of Master Titus’s life, but they were afraid of his reason. There had been injury to the brain.
“It’s powerful sa-sa-sad to see the old man,” he went on.
Higby was much older than the Judge, but still he always called him “the old man.”
“He sits and ea-ea-eats,” he stammered.
“Surely,” said the young rosy-faced cook, “he aint eatin’ with the boy ’most dyin’.”
“Did I s-s-say he was?” retorted Higby. “He’s p-p-playin’ with his food just like a ca-ca-cat with a mouse, only he ain’t goin’ to e-e-eat it.”
“He feels bad inside,” said the parlor maid sympathetically. “I know the feelin’—kind of sick like. I had it when I lost my little brother. Not a bite of food passed my lips for two days. What’s the matter with that pigeon?”
The unfortunate little princess was nearly starved. Her crop was quite empty, and she was experiencing some of the torment that the healthy young of any kind suffer from acute hunger. Titus always fed her at noon, and it was now night. Imperiously agitating her long red and white wings, she made the whistling noise which a young pigeon strives to attract the attention of its parents.