The Doctor took off his hat and wiped his forehead with his handkerchief.

"If you were a little more definite--not quite so vague and uncertain," he hopelessly suggested.

It was then that a sudden inspiration saved the day for him. He began to talk in a big and solemn voice.

"I perceive, sir," he said, "that you have reached the age for being waylaid. You are four years old, and by an ancient decree of all the Medes and Persians, that makes you my prisoner, to hold in hostage until that ungracious dame, your mother, shall subscribe unto me suitable and sufficient ransom."

David clapped his hands gleefully.

"Go on!" he demanded. "Go on! Now what?"

"Well, when you have all that said to you, it means that if you find a doctor skulking about within ten feet of you, it is then your perfect right to press him into your service. If you command him to give you a ride on his back, he will have to do it. It's undignified and he doesn't believe in it, but that's where you have him at your mercy. He _has_ to obey; he has to go any place you tell him to go. If you say he must take you to a toy shop, that settles it. He has no choice in the matter. He _has_ to do it. That is always the rule when a little boy is four years old."

David also learned that there is another peculiar thing about it.

In circ.u.mstances like this a little boy has the right, when he arrives at the toy shop, to choose for himself the thing he wants to buy. No grown-up will interfere with his judgment; the law won't allow it. The trouble is that it is pretty hard for him to make up his mind. When there is such a great array of drums and swords and soldiers' caps and guns and bears that jump, it is not an easy thing to select the toy that will please him most of all.

Why not buy a train of cars and a track to run it on? But if he bought that, then how could he get along without a jumping-jack that threw up its arms and legs when you pulled the string? And if he took the jumping-jack, then what about an iron savings bank with a monkey on top that shook his head with thanks when you dropped the money in? Lovely things, all of them, but David put them from him. He did it with decision, but with a nervous haste which told of wavering courage.

Such things were not for him. They are only for boys who are not soldier-men. And besides, they might cost too much. If the price went higher than five cents David would be lost, for many precepts had been forced upon him in regard to the waste of money, and the value people put on it, and the way they have to work for it. So thus far the nickel had marked the very summit of his financial transactions.

All the same, a strange wistfulness came into David's eyes when he put aside poor jumping-jack. Such a dear of a jumping-jack he was! You could have kissed the jolly red paint of him, and the pretty toy bank was a thing to hug tight under your arm. That is why the little boy's voice was such a weak and far-away voice when he presently asked:--

"Would two five centses get him, do you think?"

"When it's your birthday," said the Doctor, "it's all right to spend three five centses."

Here, then, was David's chance. The jumping-jack was almost his, when his shoes squeaked a warning. Thus suddenly was he reminded that he was a brave little soldier-man. He now saw that such a purchase would be ridiculous. Something serviceable is what he must have, something that Mother would like and want him to keep.

No silly toys for him! But, oh, if only the Doctor would insist a little on the jumping-jack!

David turned reluctantly away; he choked down the queerness in his throat and firmly laid hands on a gilt-rimmed mustache cup.

His lips twitched and his eyes winked, but the look in his face was the look of a soldier-man. No intervention from the Doctor could shake his determination.

With coaxing insinuation the Doctor said, "We haven't seen all the things, you know."

Hope kindled in David's eyes.

"Maybe," he said with enthusiasm, "maybe this costs more than three five centses. Does it?"

"Wouldn't you rather have a drum?" asked the salesman.

No, indeed; David would not have a drum.

"Or a sword?" asked the Doctor.

"No, thanks," the words came with husky politeness.

The cup was the thing for him; it would please Mother. She would be so glad about the cup!

Here, again, was disappointment. She didn't seem pleased with it--not nearly so pleased as she should have been. But never mind, little boy; every generous heart is quick to forget the unselfish kindness that is in it, and you yourself will not be slow to forget this foolish sacrifice you have made for love of one who has made many a sacrifice for you. She has made them, little boy, in love, and forgotten them in love, and that, David, is the beautiful thing in loving.

CHAPTER VI

"FAV-VER"

When David is an early bird it is great fun to show Mother what a sluggard she is. He calls to her to let her know it is getting-up time, and then she is _so_ amazed! She cannot understand how it is possible for her little boy to get awake almost as soon as the robins do. Sometimes she asks if he is sure he is awake, and he tells her he is sure of it, and then she believes him.

Only this morning she did not ask that, and this morning there was no smile in her eyes. A strange intentness had taken all the summer look out of her face, and there were no kisses on her lips; for he had troubled her with that repeated demand of his to be supplied with a father.

"Whose boy," she asked hesitatingly, "whose boy are you?"

David returned her steadfast gaze with a queer, impish wisdom. He sat up in bed and fixed his eyes upon her.

"Whose boy?" he slowly repeated. "Why, I'm fav-ver's boy."

"Have you a father?" asked the woman.

"If you get one for me I have."

"David," she said, more serious than was usual with her, "if you had one I should want him to look like you.... Here, little boy, here, in your face I see your father."

The woman had moulded her cool hands to David's smooth, soft cheeks, and was looking wistfully into the eyes of her little boy. But abruptly he struggled free from her; he slipped to the floor, mounted on a chair in front of the chiffonier and peeped excitedly into the mirror. A long time he looked at the tousle-headed reflection that looked earnestly back at him. He frowned, and the boy in the gla.s.s frowned, too. He was a great disappointment, that boy; he wasn't the teeniest bit like any father that ever was. He was only a child in a white nighty.

David faced about; he got down off the chair, and he turned his accusing eyes upon Mother. She had fooled her little boy; she had told him a wrong story, and it was woful disillusionment.

"You cannot see him, David," she said, "because you have no picture of him in your heart."

Well, then, did Mother have such a picture? If she did, why could she not show him that picture? And please, Mother, where did she keep that heart where the picture was?

Yes, to be sure, she had such a picture, but it was not of David's father; it was of someone else, for she had never seen David's father. In her heart was still another picture: it was a memory which had to do with the sad nativity of her little boy.

So sad an event it was that she had left off being a head nurse at the hospital, in order to become a mother by proxy.

David might some day come to know that there was a fogyish, bachelor doctor who was almost a father in the same sort of way--almost, but not quite, for the child had been left not to him, but to her. A home, likewise, was her inheritance, a very pretty little home and all else that had once belonged to the real mother of the little boy.

A brave death she had died, that kinless widow at the hospital.

And how could it have been otherwise, when so large a faith was hers in the nurse whose arm had gone lovingly around her, and whose voice, many and many a time, had given comfort and had known finally how to smooth the way to death?

But it was the Doctor's hand, not the hand of the nurse, that had gently closed the mother's eyes upon her last long sleep; and it was he, not the nurse, who had turned wofully away, and stared and stared and stared out of the window.

Grave pictures were these that Mother kept in her heart, and David was not to know how much he troubled her when he fell to questioning; and that is why, in the midst of his endless inquiries, he was wont to encounter the Great Never Mind.

Do you know what that is? It is a condition of soul common to all mothers who have little boys that want to know things.

The worst of it is that one is expected to understand when he is never to mind and when he _is_ to mind. They are not the same thing; they are twins, and they are so hard to tell apart, and so disagreeable, and act so much alike that only an expert can tell which is which.