Having ascertained the fact, alleviated the pain as well as I could, and bandaged the limb, I laid my doggie tenderly in the toy bed belonging to Jenny’s largest doll, which was quickly and heartily given up for the occasion, the dispossessed doll being callously laid on a shelf in the meantime.
It was really quite interesting to observe the effect of this accident on the tender-hearted five. They wept over Dumps most genuine tears. They begged his pardon—implored his forgiveness—in the most earnest tones and touching terms. They took turn about in watching by his sick-bed. They held lint and lotion with superhuman solemnity while I dressed his wounded limb, and they fed him with the most tender solicitude. In short, they came out quite in a new and sympathetic light, and soon began to play at sick-nursing with each other. This involved a good deal of pretended sickness, and for a long time after that it was no uncommon thing for visitors to the nursery to find three of the five down with measles, whooping-cough, or fever, while the fourth acted doctor, and the fifth nurse.
The event however, gave them a lesson in gentleness to dumb animals which they never afterwards forgot, and which some of my boy readers would do well to remember. With a laudable effort to improve the occasion, Mrs McTougall carefully printed in huge letters, and elaborately illuminated the sentence, “Be kind to Doggie,” and hung it up in the nursery. Thereupon cardboard, pencils, paints, and scissors were in immediate demand, and soon after there appeared on the walls in hideously bad but highly ornamental letters, the words “Be kind to Cattie.” This was followed by “Be kind to Polly,” which instantly suggested “Be kind to Dolly.” And so, by one means or another, the lesson of kindness was driven home.
Soon after this event Dr McTougall moved into a new house in the same street; I became regularly established as his partner, and Robin Slidder entered on his duties as page in buttons. It is right to observe here that, in deference to his prejudices, the material of his garments was not blue, but dark grey.
It was distinctly arranged, however, that Robin was to go home, as he called it, to be with Mrs Willis at nights. On no other condition would he agree to enter the doctor’s service; and I found, on talking over the subject with Mrs Willis herself, that she had become so fond of the boy that it would have been sheer cruelty to part them. In short, it was a case of mutual love at first sight! No two individuals seemed more unlikely to draw together than the meek, gentle old lady and the dashing, harum-scarum boy. Yet so it was.
“My dear,”—she always spoke to me now as if I had been her son—“this ‘waif,’ as people would call him, has clearly been sent to me as a comfort in the midst of all but overwhelming sorrow; and I believe, too, that I have been sent to draw the dear boy to Jesus. You should hear what long and pleasant talks we have about Him, and the Bible, and the ‘better land’ sometimes.”
“Indeed! I am glad to hear you say so, granny, and also surprised, because, although I believe the boy to be well disposed, I have seldom been able to get him to open his lips to me on religious subjects.”
“Ah! but he opens his dear lips to me, doctor, and reads to me many a long chapter out of the blessed Word!”
“Reads! Can he read?”
“Ay can he!—not so badly, considering that I only began to teach him two or three months ago. But he knew his letters when we began, and could spell out a few words. He’s very quick, you see, and a dear boy!”