Proud business for David! Sitting on the edge of the seat of the buggy, he was holding the reins very tight. One must always do that if he does not want the horse to kick and run away. Not knowing that the horse was tied to the hitching-post, David was fulfilling his mission with ceremony, and when Dr. Redfield appeared from the door of a drug shop across the way, the little boy called to him gayly:--

"He didn't run away, did he? I held him all right, didn't I?"

Dr. Redfield had been absent long enough to use the telephone in notifying Miss Eastman, whom David knew only by the sweeter name of Mother, that her little boy had been waylaid and would probably not be home to luncheon. She was not permitted to know that the pretty rogue had run away, but the man himself strongly suspected the truth. For some time, though, he charitably refrained from speaking of the matter. In fact, three important events in David's life took place before the painful subject was broached.

To eat at the Doctor's table, and wholly without the a.s.sistance of a high chair--that was one of the events; another was a hair-cut, and the third--Everybody, salute! David is in trouvers!

He and his big friend both admired them immensely, and it was in the little shabby, out-at-the-elbow doctor's office that David had been helped to put them on. After he had strutted for a while his Fav-ver said to him:--

"What fun, David; what fun you must have had in running away!"

"Oh," the little boy replied, "I didn't go far. I got scart and hurried back to Mother."

The Doctor looked wryly at his guest. He knew David had not gone home after running away.

"Did you see Mother after you went back?" he asked.

"No, I didn't see her."

"But you are sure you went back?"

"It didn't _feel_ back," said David.

"You couldn't have been mistaken about going back?"

"No."

"In what part of town were you when I found you on the fence-post?"

"Home," said David.

"Why were you crying?"

"I was feeling bad."

"And why was that?"

"I was scart."

"Of what?"

"Everything was so mixed up."

"You ran away, though, didn't you? And you did not see Mother after you went back?"

David nodded, and the Doctor got to his feet with a suddenness that knocked over his chair.

"Good gracious!" he exclaimed, consulting his watch. "It's been four hours since you saw Mother, and she may think something has happened to you. She may think you have been run over by horses--that you have been hurt and can never come home to her any more."

What was to be done about it? Dr. Redfield wanted to know that; David wanted to know that. The man crinkled up his forehead: he rose and began to walk the floor, and David's eyes did not leave his face.

"What are we to do?" the Doctor asked, and by and by he added, "If you see a policeman I hope you will tell him you are not lost and that you did not think of making so much trouble when you ran away. But what about Mother? Maybe she, too, has been looking everywhere for you."

The Doctor sat down and wiped his face, and then got up and began to walk about once more. You could see that he was very much distressed, but not more distressed than David. In sad perplexity they stared at each other. After everything had grown very still in the room, the little boy suddenly exclaimed in an awed voice:--

"Let's go home!"

"Well said!" the Doctor called out, and David flew for his hat; they started for the stairs, the little boy clinging desperately to the man's hand.

"Wait!" the Doctor exclaimed. They had stopped abruptly before reaching the steps. "Why don't we telephone? If we do that, it won't keep Mother waiting so long."

It was now that David's eyes began to gleam. He clapped his hands; he laughed and he danced. He was going to put Mother's heart at rest about him. She would not be troubled any more. She would know he was safe.

After the message had gone, it was easy to see in David's face that he was glad he had not run away very far. Fav-ver Doctor had not blamed him, but Fav-ver Doctor had made him understand how much trouble it makes when little boys run away.

"That's what it was all about," said David.

"You mean, I suppose--"

"Fairies don't like it if I run off. That's why they changed things around so. I hardly knew the house; it was fixed so queer."

"Yes," the Doctor a.s.sented, "it looked shocking queer. How did you ever know the place?"

"They didn't change the fence much," said David, and the man now recognized the one point of similitude between that desolate home down in Duck Town and the House of Joy where David lived.

So grim was the contrast that the Doctor winked uneasily, for it brought him back to a problem he had thought settled. He had really meant to take a vacation. He was so tired; no one knew quite, how very tired he was, and he had thought that for a brief while he was justified in leaving the fight to some one else. He only wanted a week or so--a little chance to live, to play with this little boy, and perhaps be happy! Yet, after all, dared he leave those people to other hands when they were counting so on him, and had so little else to count upon? What, he asked, would she, the Gone-Away Lady, have counseled him to do?

Rather nervously he sought the eyes of a miniature on top of his desk, and as he looked into the eyes of that sweet-faced woman, the old comfort he always used to see in them when he had stood most in need of strength, was no longer there. "In the face of so much misery," they seemed to say, "how can you think of forsaking the field?"

It was not a picture of David's mother; no, it was a likeness that had ever kept the Doctor's heart alive to gracious thoughts and gentle ways; it was the portrait of her who had not lived to be his wife, and a habit had come to him of fancying in the eyes of his patients something of the same beautiful look that was in the miniature. Particularly he had done so when David's mother was struggling hard not to go away from her little boy, and often, since then, the Doctor had compared the face of the picture with that of the child; and to-day, as he was wont to do, he took the dainty bit of porcelain in his hand to see if he could not trace, feature by feature, the likeness he so loved to imagine.

The way of this was very interesting to David. He stood by the Doctor's chair and leaned his elbows on the knees of his friend, with his plump chin in the wee, white hands.

"Is it your mother?" he questioned.

The Doctor smiled.

"No, David, but she would have been a good mother."

"Who is it?"

"It is some one," the Doctor slowly replied, "who would have loved you very, very much."

"Where is she now?"

"She went away, little boy; years ago, David, she went away from me."