At the end of a week Dr. Markham said that Kettle would get well. His burns were very bad, but his face and hands were not disfigured, and although his body would be scarred for life, he might yet be restored to health. The kitchen and Aunt Tulip’s room had been repaired, and Kettle was transferred to Aunt Tulip’s room, while Uncle Cesar occupied the little cubby-hole where Kettle had slept.
CHAPTER XIX
CALM WEATHER
Gradually the little house at Holly Lodge assumed its usual aspect. The Colonel and Betty were flooded with offers of hospitality and with all sorts of services—those kindly acts which in country communities bridge over catastrophes. Fortescue was gone, having left the second day after Christmas. On that day he had come over to Holly Lodge to say good-by and to offer the resources of Rosehill in any emergency. He had come while Betty was watching Kettle, and although the Colonel urged that he might call her, Fortescue evaded it, and cut his visit short. The Colonel asked him if he himself had suffered any evil effects from the fire. Fortescue replied that his eyes had given him some trouble from the smoke, and that he would use the rest of his leave in going to New York to see an oculist. He supposed it was nothing, and that his eyes would cease to trouble him probably before he got to New York. The Colonel told this to Betty in good faith, but Betty’s interpretation was that Fortescue needed an excuse to go away as soon as possible, and gave herself no concern about his eyes. In her heart, however, still burned a deep resentment, and a longing regret for Fortescue. He was so brave—he was so much the soldier—and then Betty would check herself sternly, and try to think of him no more.
As the winter days went by, Kettle grew stronger, and was able to sit up in a little chair by the kitchen fire. Betty spent many hours amusing him, his little round, black face delighted with the simple games she taught him and the stories she told him. His Christmas presents had been given him, and of them all his new pocket-knife was his chief delight. He would sit by the hour before the kitchen fire, whittling industriously, and Aunt Tulip never once complained of the clutter he made. Betty charmed him by occasionally wearing the great green and gilt brooch, and the Colonel religiously read through “The Principles of Hydraulics in Mining.” In the evening, before Aunt Tulip put him to bed, it was Kettle’s treat to be helped into the sitting-room and to listen to Betty playing and singing to her harp, or the Colonel playing on his violin. The boy’s arms had been frightfully burned, but his hands had escaped. Several times he said to Betty, with a strange look of distress upon his little black face:
“Miss Betty, I want to arsk you sumpin’. I want you to arsk the doctor sumpin’.”
“What is it, Kettle?” Betty would inquire.
“I tell you pres’ny,” Kettle would reply. But the “pres’ny” did not come for a long time. Then, one day in March, when Kettle was able to walk about and was almost well, he crept up to Betty in the garden, and said to her hesitatingly: