"The sooner the better. Well leave here tomorrow for Fairview—"
"O, do I have to go away for it?" The great eyes looked startled and half fearful.
"Yes, to Danbury Hospital in Fairview, and—"
"O, then I'll go, sure!" She clapped her thin hands gleefully. "I always did want to see the insides of a hospital. I've often visited one, but never had to live there a day, for they operated on me at home before. Mercy, I'm having a lot of 'xperiences, ain't I? Here comes Grandpa now, and the rest of the bunch. Hello, folkses! Guess what's going to happen! I'm going to Fairview Hospital tomorrow in Danbury, and be cut to pieces again. Dr. Dick is to do the operation. I b'lieve he knows enough, even if he ain't a gray-back; and he thinks he can stop the hurting, so it won't come back any more. That's worth trying for, ain't it?"
"But tomorrow—" gasped the girls. "Is it to be that soon?"
"We ought to leave here tomorrow," explained Dr. Shumway. "The operation will take place as soon after that as we can get her rested up for it."
"Then it is all settled!" sighed the President in relief, and a great burden seemed lifted from his shoulders. Somehow, the strong, earnest face of the young doctor inspired confidence and courage in the hearts of others, and they could not but feel that all would go well with their little invalid.
So they departed the next day for Fairview,—the President and his wife, Dr. Shumway and his patient,—and a few days later Peace found herself lying on the operating table in a great, white room of the hospital, with white-capped nurses flitting noiselessly about, and white-gowned doctors passing to and fro.
"It's like my dream," she whispered. "Only there aren't any shelves filled with goods and bads.—Well, Dr. Dick, if you aren't a fright! I never should have known you if you hadn't spoken. You look like the pictures in our Sunday School lessons of how they used to bury folks in the Bible, with that nightgown on and all that white stuff over your head. It's rather 'propriate, though, for this room looks like a car-slop-egus. Isn't that what you call the graves they used to put people in?"