EIGHT.
GRANDMA TURNS NURSE.
When I came to it was dark enough for lights, Dawn's well-moulded hands were supporting my head, Grandma Clay's voice was sternly engineering affairs, and Andrew was blubbering at the foot of the bed on which I was resting.
I tried to tell them there was no cause for alarm, and to beg grandma's pardon for turning her house into a "sick hospital," but though not quite unconscious, I appeared entirely so.
"I wish you had sense to have gone for Dr Tinker when Dr Smalley wasn't in," said the old lady, with nothing but solicitude in her voice.
The sternness in evidence when I had been trying to gain entrance to her house was entirely absent.
"I'm afraid she's dead," said Dawn.
"Oh, she ain't; is she, Dawn?" sobbed Andrew. "She was a decent sort of person. A pity some of those other old scotty-boots that was here in the summer didn't die instead." And that cemented a firm friendship between the lad and myself. An individual utterly alone in the world prizes above all things a little real affection.