Kate clapped her hands softly, kissed her mother half a dozen times, and then ran upstairs to the room adjoining Frank’s own, to see with her own eyes that Bridget made it properly ready for the coming boy.
Frank and Kate were greatly disappointed when Richard came back with the carriage. The doctor would not permit Harry Cornwall to be moved.
The next morning Frank was up “bright and early,” and for two hours before it was time for breakfast he worked away with right good will in the field, hoeing corn.
“Poor fellow!” said Mrs. Hallock, looking out from her dressing-room upon the boy, “I’m afraid Frank thinks that if he works very hard, and finishes the work this week, that you will relent and let him have the corn.”
“No,” said Mr. Hallock; “he can’t think that. He knows better. But it is hard to take away all that he has done; for Frank has worked well.”
“The best thing that he has done is the telling the truth,” said Frank’s mother, with glistening eyes. “It would have been very easy for Frank to have kept still, and then we need not have known where he spent the morning. I think he ought to know how thankful we feel for his manliness. We must prove it to him in some way.”
Soon after the above conversation, the family met in the breakfast-room. Frank entered bright and glowing, and with a face as happy as though he owned a hundred acres of growing corn.
“Good morning, Frank. How is my corn this morning? You know it is mine now,” said Mr. Hallock.
“Yes sir,” said Frank.
“O, papa, papa!” entreated Kate, “when Frank has been so good and everything!”