With these words he pressed his orange and black cap into Arthur’s hand and rose to go, but Arthur looked so wistfully at him, and then at the captain’s cap, that he stopped.
“I’d like to wear it, Mr. Carr,” he said slowly. “I’d like to, ever so much, Mamma,” he added, turning his eyes to where Mrs. Waller stood looking out at the twilight and weeping softly,—“but you see, sir, I don’t play myself. I generally referee. I’m not very strong, sir, not at present; but I will be some day,—won’t I, Mamma? And the doctor says I must keep quiet until I am older, and not play games that are rough. For he says if I got a shock or a fall I might not get over it, or it might put me back—and I do so want to get well just as soon as I can. You see, sir, it’s my spine——”
Richard Carr gave a sharp gasp of pain and dropped on his knees beside the sofa, and buried his face beside the boy’s on the pillow, with his arms thrown tightly around his shoulder.
For a moment Arthur looked at him startled and distressed, and patted Richard Carr’s broad back to comfort him; and then he cried:
“Oh, but I didn’t mean to blame you, Mr. Carr! I know you didn’t see me. Don’t you worry about me, Mr. Carr. I’m going to get well some day. Indeed I am, sir!”
Whether it was that the surgeon whom Richard Carr’s father sent on from New York knew more about Arthur’s trouble than the other doctors did, or whether it was that Richard Carr saw that Arthur had many medicines, pleasant and unpleasant, which his mother had been unable to get for him, I do not know,—but I do know that Arthur got better day by day.
And day after day, Richard Carr stopped on his way to the field, and on his way back again, to see his “Baby,” as he called him, and to answer the numerous questions put to him by Arthur’s companions. They always assembled at the hour of Richard Carr’s arrival in order to share some of the glory that had fallen on their comrade, and to cherish and carry away whatever precious thoughts Richard Carr might let drop concerning foot-ball, or the weather, or any other vital topic on which his opinion was decisive.
As soon as the doctor said Arthur could be moved, Richard Carr used to stop for him in a two-seated carriage and drive him in state to the foot-ball field. And after he had drawn up the carriage where Arthur could get a good view of the game, he would hand over the reins to one of those vulture-like individuals who hover around the field of battle, waiting for some one to be hurt, and who are known as “substitutes.” In his orange and black uniform, one of these fellows made a very gorgeous coachman indeed.
And though the students might yell, and the townspeople shout ever so loudly, Richard Carr only heard one shrill little voice, which called to him above all the others; and as that voice got stronger day by day, Richard Carr got back his old spirit and interest in the game, which, since the Yale match, he seemed to have lost.