But her knees gave out, and wilting down to the grass, she tried to crawl along on all fours till straining wrists sent her back to her feet again.
Whenever she tried to walk, the Little Girl walked; whenever she tried to crawl, the Little Girl crawled.
“Isn’t it fun!” the shrill childish voice piped persistently. “Isn’t it just like playing shipwreck!”
When they reached the car, both woman and child were too utterly exhausted with breathlessness to do anything except just sit down on the ground and stare.
Sure enough, under that monstrous, immovable-looking machine the Senior Surgeon’s body lay rammed, face down, deep, deep into the grass.
It was the Little Girl who recovered her breath first.
“I think he’s dead,” she volunteered sagely. “His legs look—awfully dead to me.” Only excitement was in the statement. It took a second or two for her little mind to make any particularly personal application of such excitement. “I hadn’t—exactly—planned—on having him dead,” she began with imperious resentment. A threat of complete emotional collapse zigzagged suddenly across her face. “I won’t have him dead! I won’t! I won’t!” she screamed out stormily.
In the amazing silence that ensued the White Linen Nurse gathered her trembling knees up into the circle of her arms and sat there staring at the Senior Surgeon’s prostrate body, and rocking herself feebly to and fro in a futile effort to collect her scattered senses.
“Oh, if some one would only tell me what to do, I know I could do it! Oh, I know I could do it! If some one would only tell me what to do!” she kept repeating helplessly.
Cautiously the Little Girl crept forward on her hands and knees to the edge of the car, and peered speculatively through the great yellow wheel-spokes. “Father!” she faltered in almost inaudible gentleness. “Father!” she pleaded in perfectly impotent whisper.