“I don’t believe it’s movies,” said Nan, the fifteen-year-old sister, noting the serious expression of Douglas’s usually calm countenance. “I believe something has happened. Is it Bobby?” That was the very small brother, the joy and torment of the whole family.
The Carters formed stair steps with a decided jump off at the bottom. Douglas was eighteen; Helen, seventeen; Nan, fifteen; Lucy, thirteen; and then came a gap of seven years and Bobby, who had crowded the experiences of a lifetime into his six short years, at least the life-long experiences of any ordinary mortal. He was always having hair-breadth escapes so nearly serious that his family lived in momentary terror of each being the last.
“No, it’s not Bobby,” said Douglas gravely. “It’s Father!”
“But nothing serious! Not Daddy!” exclaimed the two younger girls and both of them looked ready for tears. “Can’t the new doctor cure him?”
“Yes, he thinks he can, but it is going to be up to us to help,” and Douglas drew Lucy and Nan down on the sofa beside her while Helen stopped polishing her pretty pink nails and planted herself on an ottoman at her feet. “All of you must have noticed how thin Father is getting and how depressed he is——”
“Yes, yes! Not a bit like himself!”
“Well, it wasn’t malaria, as Dr. Davis thought; and it wasn’t stomach trouble, as Dr. Drew thought; and the surgeon’s X-ray could not show chronic appendicitis, as Dr. Slaughter feared,——”
“Feared, indeed!” sniffed Helen. “Hoped, you mean!”
“But this new nerve specialist that comes here from Washington, so highly recommended——”
“If he was doing so well in Washington, why did he come to Richmond?” interrupted the scornful Helen, doubtful as usual of the whole medical fraternity.