“Miss Betty, what I want you to arsk the doctor is, whether I kin ever play the fiddle agin. I been tryin’ to arsk ’im, but somehow I k’yarn’ do it.”
“Certainly, I will ask the doctor, Kettle,” answered Betty cheerfully, “and I am sure you will be able to play the fiddle. Yonder is Doctor Markham’s buggy coming down the lane.”
Betty met the doctor at the house door. Kettle had slipped away; he evidently had not the courage to stay. Then Betty put her question.
“Certainly he will be able to play the fiddle,” replied Dr. Markham, smiling over his spectacles. “That little fellow is as hard as nails. There isn’t one child in a hundred who would have survived such injuries. But he’ll be all right.”
Betty called Kettle, who reappeared around the corner of the house. He came slouching up, with a faint shadow of his former grin upon his face. Something in Betty’s eyes told him that there was good news for him.
“Hello, you young rascal!” cried the doctor jovially. “In another month or two you will be running around here as mischievous as ever, and you will be able to fiddle all right when you get stronger. But you are not to touch the fiddle until I tell you. Do you understand?”
“Yes, sirree,” answered Kettle delightedly, his mouth coming wide open. Then, looking from Betty to the doctor, and back again, and shuffling his feet awkwardly, he tried to express some of the gratitude that filled his humble little heart.
“Miss Betty, she treat me white, and so did you, Doc’ Markham. I ain’ a-gwine ter furgit it.”
Dr. Markham went in the house to see the Colonel, who was ailing, and who had been ailing a good deal that winter. The doctor’s cheery smile and pleasant words brightened the Colonel up immensely. When Dr. Markham rose to go, after one of those long and friendly visits of the country doctor which are so comforting, Betty went out with him. Kettle was waiting outside in the spring sunshine. In his hand was a small object, carefully wrapped up in white paper. Kettle shuffled up to the doctor as he was getting into his buggy, and said to him, with much stammering and stuttering:
