“Grant Adams–we’re afraid he’s killed.” The man who spoke was Denny Hogan. Beside him was an Italian, who said, “He’s burned something most awful. He got it saving des feller here,” nodding and pointing to Hogan.
Laura put down her child and hurried through the house to her father’s little office. The strong smell of an anesthetic came to her. She saw Amos Adams standing a-tremble by the office door, holding Kenyon’s hand. Amos answered her question.
“They think he’s dying,–I knew he’d want to see Kenyon.”
Jasper, white and frightened, stood on the stairs. These details she saw at a glance as she pushed open the office door. At first she saw great George Brotherton and three 242or four white-faced, terrified working men, standing in stiff helplessness, while like a white shuttle, among the gloomy figures the Doctor moved quickly, ceaselessly, effectively. Then her eyes met her father’s. He said:
“Come in, Laura–I need you. Now all of you go out but George and her.”
Then, as she came into the group, Laura saw Grant Adams, sitting with agony upon his wet face. Her father bent over him and worked on a puffy, pink, naked arm and shoulder, and body. The man was half conscious; his face was twitching, and when she looked again she saw where his right hand should be only a brown, charred stump.
Not looking up the Doctor spoke: “You know where things are and what I need–I can’t get him clear under,” Every motion he made counted; he took no false steps; he made no turn of his body or twist of his hand that was not full of conscious purpose. He only spoke to give orders, and when Brotherton whispered to Laura:
“White hot lead pig at the smelter–Grant saw it was going to kill Hogan and grabbed it.”
The Doctor shook his head at Brotherton and for two hours that was all Laura knew of the accident. Once when the Doctor stopped for a second to take a deep breath, Brotherton asked, “Do you want another doctor?” the little man shook his head again, and motioned with it at his daughter.
“She’s doing well enough.” She kept her father’s merciless pace, but always the sense of her stricken life seemed to be hovering in the back of her consciousness, and the hours seemed ages as she applied her bandages, and helped with the gruesome work of the knife on the charred stump of the arm. But finally it was over and she saw Brotherton and Hogan lift Grant to a cot, under her father’s direction, and carry him to the bedroom she had used as a girl at home. While the Doctor and Laura had been working in his office Mrs. Nesbit had been making the bedroom ready.