“Father,” Judy broke in, “you’re forgetting me. Dr. Keene said I could help.”
“And I’ll take your place at camp,” Karl said eagerly. “It’s only mornings and I can arrange it, if you wish, Judy.”
Dr. Keene got up. “That settles everything nicely. Judy, you and your father will relieve each other. Remember again, absolute silence on your mother’s part in her cure. I’ve given her a sedative and I advise you and your father to go to bed.”
Mr. Lurie accompanied Dr. Keene to the door and Judy followed with Karl. While the two men were exchanging some final words, Judy said, “I can’t thank you enough, Karl, for offering to help at camp. But I’m worried, too. You need every hour of practice.”
“Haven’t you enough on your mind without taking me on too? I’ll manage,” he said cheerfully. “Besides, I want to help. I’m doing very little really and Uncle Yahn won’t mind. He admires your family so much.”
He held Judy’s limp hand. “Don’t you understand how much your family and—you have meant to me this summer?”
Dr. Keene motioned to Karl and said, “Come on, young man, we’ve got to let these people get some rest.”
For four days Minna Lurie’s room was in semidarkness. No one rang the doorbell and no one was permitted to telephone. The music students came quietly, played with unusual softness and left just as unobtrusively. When Judy saw the first one arrive, she was alarmed and hastily inquired, “Shall I send the young Paderewski away?”
Minna wrote with a still unsteady hand, “No. Like hearing piano.”
Preparing three meals a day might have taxed an even older girl than Judy, but her confidence was undaunted. No worker in a scientific laboratory studied instructions with more meticulous care than Judy lavished over the fine print on boxes of jell-o, cream of wheat, or custard puddings.