CHAPTER XIII
THE LITTLE AUTHOR LADY
"Well, Peace, my dear little Peace, I am afraid the time has come for me to leave you."
Miss Wayne had entered the sick room noiselessly, and, pausing beside the wheel-chair, stood looking with tenderly wistful eyes down at the face of her small charge, who, propped up among her pillows, was animatedly watching the traffic in the street below.
"O, Miss Wayne," Peace, so engrossed with what she had seen that she did not catch the significance of the nurse's remark, lifted her bright shining eyes to the face above her and giggled, "why didn't you come sooner? You missed the biggest sight of your life. It was so funny! There was a runaway, and the horse chased across our lawn just as Dr. Canfield came up the walk. He had his med'cine case in one hand and an umbrella in the other, and he let out a big yell and began to wave them both around his head while he danced up and down in front of the horse. I guess he was trying to keep it out of a garden in the middle of the yard, but the old beast didn't shoo worth a cent, and the doctor had to do some lively dodging to get out of its way. He is so short and fat and pudgy that he did look too funny for anything, hopping around like a rubber ball and squealing like a pig. He kept a-hollering, 'O, my cannons, oh, my cannons!' But the horse went straight through the garden just the same, and now the doctor's down on his knees in the mud digging up some onions and looking 'em all over carefully."
Miss Wayne's merry laugh joined in with that of her patient, and following Peace's example, she pressed her face against the window pane and looked down at the panting, puffing figure on the muddy, trampled turf below. "It's his cannas," she explained. "He always has an immense bed of red canna lilies in the center of the lawn every summer. They are the pride of his heart, and I can imagine what he felt like to have a team plough through his precious garden. Fortunately, it is so early in the Spring that the bulbs have not yet sprouted, so I guess there is not much damage done. 'Canfield's Cannas' is a hospital joke. I wish I could have seen his encounter with that runaway."
Wiping the mirthful tears from her eyes, she turned to the tiny closet in the corner of the room, dragged forth a suitcase, and began to take down some garments from the hooks, preparatory to packing.
"Why, Miss Wayne," cried Peace, her attention attracted by the sound of the valise on the floor. "Whatever are you doing?"
"Gathering up my scattered belongings ready for departure—"