Billy thrust his head within her view. “Want to go home, Taddie?”
That was Walter’s pet name for her and it further aroused her. She knew Billy and feebly reached out her arms to him.
“Yes, we’ll take her home,” the doctor said. “The sight of her mother will be best medicine now.” With that they stepped into the car and drove to Mr. Buckman’s house, arriving to find it in great commotion.
Mrs. Wright and Billy’s mother had been out when the accident occurred; but the story of Madge, who had been playing with Dottie, added to the conflicting reports of the neighbors, had terribly frightened Mrs. Buckman. She had telephoned the police department, called her husband, and had their own physician waiting when the boys brought her darling safely to her arms.
The doctors joined in a further examination, while in an adjoining room, by Mr. Buckman’s order, the three boys waited the result. They were still under great tension, and restless while the tall clock ticked off the interminable minutes, one by one.
But at last the door opened to admit the men; and the boys heard a soft sobbing, and the mother’s voice speaking a torrent of endearing words over her rescued child.
“Tell them—thank—Oh, James, you know what to say,” she called after her husband in a voice tremulous with tears of joy.
Before he could speak, Walter ran in, disheveled, haggard, and closing the door, stood behind his father.
“Tell me, young man,” the second doctor asked Max, “how it happened you knew enough to treat that child as you did? But for that nothing could have saved her. As it was, it was a mighty close shave.”
“My father’s a doctor, and I have sometimes been with him on emergency cases, and seen him work. Besides he told me a few things.” Max spoke modestly in a voice weak from excitement and hard work.