I [The "House Beautiful"]
II [Breaking Bad News]
III [Gordon's Farm]
IV [Into the Unknown]
V [The Home-Coming]
VI [A Day in the Country]
VII [The Riding of Jane]
VIII [Rain—And a Friend]
IX ["Maggie or Something"]
X ['Possum Takes Hold]
XI [Farmers in Earnest]
XII [Sailing]
XIII [Amateur Surgery]
XIV [A Boating Holiday]
XV [Santa Claus and Clothes]
XVI [A Little Boy]
XVII ['Possum Becomes a Pupil]
XVIII [The Regatta]
XIX [The Order of Release]
'POSSUM
CHAPTER I
THE "HOUSE BEAUTIFUL"
The trim suburban garden blazed with flowers. Over the porch at the gate mandevillea hung in a curtain of fragrant white, and an archway over the path that wound through the close-shaven lawn was a miracle of Fortune's yellow roses—gold and rose and copper blended gloriously. There were beds aflame with "bonfire" salvia, and others gay with many-hued annuals. Gaudy tulips reared splendid heads near a great clump of arum lilies that fringed a tiny pool where little Garth Macleod's solitary goldfish swam in lonely state. Everywhere there were roses; in standards in the smooth, well-kept beds, or trained along the wide verandas, forming a screen of exquisite blossom. Their sweetness lay like a charm over the garden.
It was a hot spring afternoon. Tom Macleod, digging busily in a corner, pushed his Panama back from his flushed face, and stood erect for a moment to ease his aching back. As he did so a motor whirred to the gate, stopped, and a stout little man hurried up the path, waving a capable hand towards the shirt-sleeved worker across the lawn.
"Hullo, Doctor!" Macleod called.
"See you presently, Tom," was all the doctor vouchsafed him. He disappeared behind the roses on the veranda, and Macleod returned to his work with a furrow between his eyes that had not been there before. From time to time he cast half-impatient glances towards the house, whence no sound issued. Finally, with a hasty movement, he plunged his spade into the soil, and went with long strides across the grass—meeting, at the step, the doctor, who plunged out of the house like a plump Jack-in-the-box.
"Oh!" said Macleod vaguely. "How's the kid?"
"The kid? why, going on first-rate," said the doctor, laughing. "Can't a man stay five minutes talking to his patient's mother without your making up your mind that the kid must be dying?"