"Do you mean, Doctor Heath, you 're going to give me a full-blooded Wyandotte cock?" he demanded.
"That is just what I mean, March," replied the Doctor, with great gravity, "and twelve full-blooded wives are at this moment looking in vain for a roost beside their lord and master in the express office down at Barton's River."
"Oh, glory!" cried March, wringing the Doctor's hand with both his, and then going off to execute another somersault. "You 've done it now!"
"Done what, March?" asked Doctor Heath, really touched by the boy's grateful enthusiasm.
"Made my fortune," he replied, dropping into his seat again, breathless with excitement; and to the Doctor's amazement he saw tears, actual tears, gather in the boy's eyes, before he looked down in his plate and busied himself with his baked potato.
Hazel saw them too. "What a strange boy," she thought, "and how different this is from eating my dinner all alone!" Then she slipped up to the Doctor's side with her small tray containing nothing but empty dishes, for the keen air and the sight of so many others eating and enjoying themselves had given her a good appetite.
"Are you satisfied with me now?" she said, presenting her tray.
"I should think so," he exclaimed. "Two glasses of milk, two slices of toasted brown bread, one piece of sponge cake, and a baked apple with cream! I 've gone out of business with you; my last 'tonic' is going to work well,--don't you think so?"
"I 'm sure it is," she said quietly, but there was such a depth of meaning in the sweet voice and the few words that the Doctor threw his arm around her as they rose from the table, and kept her beside him until bedtime.
At nine o'clock, Mrs. Blossom helped her to undress, and then, saying she would come back soon, left her alone in the little bedroom off the kitchen.