Margaret J. Preston.
INTRODUCTIONS.
HIS name is Bobby Williams, and he is the boy who stands with smiling face, and hands in pockets, watching the huge snow ball being rolled to its place.
He has been doing something besides watch; not a boy in the crowd worked harder than he, until he was red in the face and quite out of breath, and two others came to take his place; then stood Bobby in the biting northeast wind, watching.
You should have seen that same boy at midnight, or a little later. Sitting bolt upright in the big chair in his mother’s room; a hurried fire burning in the grate; his feet in hot water up to his knees, his hands in hot water up to his elbows, spoonfuls of disgusting stuff being poked down his throat every few minutes, and his very wail in protest,—so hoarse that you would have been in danger of mistaking it for the voice of the big dog out in the back kitchen.
It seemed as though the doctor would never reach there, and when he came, as though he did nothing; and when something was really done, and Bobby was somewhat relieved, it seemed as though the weary night would never be gone.
But it was, at last; and Bobby, pale and limp, with flannel about his neck, and a smell of pork and oil in the air, was tucked into his mother’s bed, and listened to the merry jingle of the school bell.
Then said the tired mother: “Bobby, how was it all; did you get very warm yesterday, playing?”