“Then you run and see, and you leave my door wide open, or I’ll get up.”
Sarah obeyed. On the floor in the sitting-room lay Tommy in a little sprawl of unconsciousness. Over him knelt Nancy and Reuben.
“Stop asking him what the matter is when he’s fainted dead away, and fetch me the bottle of cordial from the top butt’ry shelf, Reuben; and you, Nancy, get the camphor bottle, quick,” commanded Sarah.
After a while Tommy was revived, but he was a sick little boy. He was put to bed in the little room out of his grandmother’s, and the doctor was called. At that date the medical fraternity was not very anxious concerning shocks to the nerves. Tommy swallowed valerian and was afterward comforted with peppermints. He had a hot brick at his feet, and nobody spoke out loud anywhere near him.
“He is a very delicate child,” said the doctor out in the sitting-room with the door tightly closed. “Don’t give him much to eat to-day.”
“A little jelly?” sobbed Nancy, who was quite overcome.
“Oh, yes, jelly and toast and weak tea when he wakes up,” said the doctor.
Tommy slept for hours. He was a delicate child, and his night of rapt wakefulness, his terrible disillusionment, his lack of food, for he had eaten no breakfast, had all been too much for him.
It was after the noon dinner when he awaked and had his tea and toast and jelly. He had just finished it when there was a sound of wheels and horse hoofs in the yard. The snow had all melted and the ground was quite bare. Nancy and Reuben ran to the windows.
“It’s Tom Loring,” exclaimed Nancy. Tom Loring was Tommy’s mother’s brother, his uncle Tom.