“It was the widow Waller’s son, sir,” volunteered Sam, the colored attendant. “That’s her house with the trees around it; you can see the roof from here. I think that’s where they took him.”
“Took him!” exclaimed Richard Carr, catching up his great-coat. “Was he so badly hurt? You wait until I come back, Sam.”
A pale, gentle-faced woman, who looked as if she had been crying, came to the door when Richard Carr rang the bell of the cottage which had been pointed out to him from the athletic grounds. When she saw his foot-ball costume, the look of welcome on her face died out very suddenly.
“Does the little boy live here who was hurt on the athletic grounds?” asked Richard Carr, wondering if it could have been the doctor she was expecting.
“Yes, sir,” answered the lady, coldly.
“I came to see how he was; I am the man who ran against him. I wish to explain to you how it happened—I suppose you are Mrs. Waller?” (Richard Carr hesitated, and bowed, but the lady only bowed her head in return, and said nothing.) “It was accidental, of course,” continued Carr. “He was in the crowd when I ran in after the ball; it was flying over our heads, and I was looking up at it and didn’t see him. I hope he is all right now.” Before the lady could answer, Richard Carr’s eyes wandered from her face and caught sight of a little figure lying on a sofa in the wide hall. Stepping across the floor as lightly as he could in his heavy shoes, Carr sat down beside Arthur on the sofa. “Well, old man,” he said, taking Arthur’s hands in his, “I hope I didn’t hurt you much. No bones broken,—are there? You were very plucky not to cry. It was a very hard fall, and I’m very, very sorry; but I didn’t see you, you know.”
“Oh, no, sir,” said Arthur, quickly, with his eyes fixed on Richard Carr’s face. “I knew you didn’t see me, and I thought maybe you would come when you heard I was hurt. I don’t mind it a bit, from you. Because Willie Beck says—he is the captain of our team, you know—that you wouldn’t hurt any one if you could help it; he says you never hit a man on the field unless he’s playing foul or trying to hurt some of your team.”
Richard Carr doubted whether this recital of his virtues would appeal as strongly to Mrs. Waller as it did to Arthur, so he said, “And who is Willie Beck?”
“Willie Beck! Why, don’t you know Willie Beck?” exclaimed Arthur, who was rapidly losing his awe of Richard Carr. “He says he knows you; he is the boy who holds your coat for you during the practice games.”
Richard Carr saw he was running a risk of hurting some young admirer’s feelings, so he said, “Oh, yes, the boy who holds my coat for me. And he is the captain of your team, is he? Well, the next time you play, you wear this cap and tell Willie Beck and the rest of the boys that I gave it to you because you were so plucky when I knocked you down.”