"You know if a doctor had hold of you he would put it in plaster. I am afraid maybe we ought to 'fess up and call in a doctor. It might be a very serious thing to neglect it."
"Nonsense! I trust your bandaging more than I would old Dr. Stick-in-the-mud's, here at Gresham. You know he would not do anything quite so modern as put it in plaster."
Dee carried the bandage well up on my leg to keep it from puffing out over the top and then I was put tenderly to bed.
"I can't see that because I've got a sore foot it is any reason I should have to go hungry," I whined. "I am so empty I could easily eat up my bandage."
"Don't you dare!"
"Oh, honey, I am so sorry! I don't know why we did not think to sneak you something. You looked so pale and wan when we left you to go to supper that somehow I never connected you with the thought of food. To think of your being hungry!" and Dum's hazel eyes got moist.
"But then's then and now's now! I reckon I can hold out 'til morning, however."
One of the peculiarities of boarding school is that if you are sick at all you are supposed to be too sick to eat. If you are really very bad off, so far gone you have to be put in the hospital, then you are fed up. If a girl skips a meal from indisposition, nothing is done about her food by the housekeeper, but if her roommate chooses to sneak some of her own supply up to the sufferer, although it is supposed to be against the rules to take any food from the table, at a time like that the infringement is winked at.
The girls were afraid to get out the alcohol lamp and make me a cup of instantaneous chocolate as we were almost sure one of the teachers would come to see how I was before they turned in for the night. As it was, they had hardly got the bowl of hot water out of the way and the room to rights before Miss Ball knocked on the door. She had a dainty tray of food for me.
"I didn't think hysterics would last so long you would not want something to eat, Page," she said archly, laying a little stress on hysterics. "I cooked this for you on my chafing dish."