"Now I must go. I'll look in again on your boy in an hour. Madam"--to Mrs.

Keep. "Meantime, I'd stay over here, for I've sent for a nurse from the hospital; he must be kept quiet a spell. Good-day," and he was off.

"Now, boys"--there was a pretty pink spot in either cheek, as Mrs. Sterling turned to them--"do you know, I've thought of a plan by which you might do something for Lawrence?"

"What--oh, what?" They crowded up to her sofa. Gibson, from the doorway where she had retreated, to be within call, looked a little anxious, but catching a glance from her mistress, smoothed out her face again.

"What is your plan?" asked Curtis. It really seemed as if the boys had been accustomed to gather in that room, by the way in which they now crowded up as comrades entering into anything that might be proposed.

"You know that before long Lawrence will be able to see you, we hope,"

began Mrs. Sterling, in her cheeriest way. "Gibson, push up that pillow a little more."

"Oh, I will," cried Curtis, springing forward.

Gibson, in great trepidation at any one performing the office for her mistress, started to do it, but Curtis was already most gallantly, if a trifle awkwardly, pushing up the pillow, giving it a rousing thump that got on the nerves of the maid.

"You should have waited for me," she said tartly.

"Never mind; that is all right." Mrs. Sterling smiled up at him where he stood, the hot blood in his face, and his eyes downcast. "I'm very much obliged to you, Curtis. I guess you are accustomed to do it for your mother," she said encouragingly.

"I do--I am," he said incoherently, beginning to feel better. It was only Gibson who was cross, he reflected; Mrs. Sterling herself was as nice as she could be.

"Well now, if I were you," said Mrs. Sterling, turning on her pillow to get a good look at them all, "I'd form a committee, a comfort committee, to think up things that will interest Lawrence. And by and by the doctor is going to let you go to see him, and----"

"What things?" The small boy who had proposed the cheers for Mrs. Sterling, now pushed to the front, so as to get a good look at her. "Tell me, please, what things?"

"Well, you can cut out funny things from the magazines and papers for one thing," said Mrs. Sterling, quite delighted at the success of her plan so far, "and the nurse can read them to him."

"I've got a lot of _Punch_ numbers," cried one boy.

"And _Life,_" said another.

"And oceans of magazines." They all shouted one thing, and another. Gibson, who by this time was tired of popping her head in and out, had withdrawn to a little room opening out of her mistress' apartment, and taken up her sewing, quite convinced that far from its being a cause for alarm, everything was going on finely.

"Well now, just see how much pleasure that will give him," Mrs. Sterling was saying.

"What else?" asked the small boy.

"Then has any one of you any puzzles?" asked Mrs. Sterling, "or conundrums?

Don't you think that is fine, to have something to think of beside dismal things, when you lie in bed?"

Curtis Park was just in his element here, for he dearly loved puzzles and conundrums. And presently Mrs. Sterling and he were busily talking over this and that kind, and book, and collection, until finally the small boy pulled the fringe of her pink crocheted shawl.

"I want to know what else?"

"Dear me!" Mrs. Sterling looked up quickly, to give a little laugh. It wasn't loud, but so cheery and sweet that Gibson, in the little outer room, dropped her sewing in her lap. "Thank the Lord!" she said, and wiped her eyes.

Frick, meanwhile, too excited to hear the doctor call them to come back, had darted out of the house, with no thought for the rain, but with one wild desire--to find Joel Pepper. And as he had a perfect faculty for sprinting, and cut through, with a dash, all the cross-streets, he soon found himself for the second time that day at the King mansion.

But this second time he was no more fortunate than the first. For although he was willingly admitted to Mr. King's writing-room, it was to see that gentleman look up and say with the most genial of smiles:

"Ah, Frick, my boy, well, this time it's all right, isn't it, since I let Joel go down to you?"

"Joel hasn't been with us," blurted out Frick, Then he leaned against the big writing-table, speech all gone, for he began to feel terribly tired, and it had been nothing but one long disappointment all day.

Old Mr. King laid down his pen and looked Frick all over.

"Oh, no, he hasn't," declared Frick, shaking his head dismally; "we haven't any of us seen him, and Larry Keep has been run over by Mr. MacIlvaine's tallyho, and most smashed up." Then he stopped suddenly, his cup of woe being empty.

"The first thing to do is to find Joel," said Mr. King to himself, anxiously. "The storm is almost over, to be sure"--glancing out of the window--"but where can he be?" He hurried across the room and touched the electric b.u.t.ton. "You haven't the least idea, Frick, where to look for him, eh?"

"No, sir," said Frick miserably.

Thomas popped his head in, to be given the order to have one of the rainy-day carriages brought round. Just then, in ran Jasper. He had been caught by the sudden shower over at Pickering Dodge's.

"Father," he cried, his face glowing, "I've come home as soon as it slacked up a bit. Why, you are not going out?"--seeing the old gentleman beginning to don his mackintosh.

"Yes, I am," said Mr. King grimly, "going to do just that very thing, Jasper."

"Oh, let me, Father." Jasper sprang to his side eagerly, then looked in a puzzled way over to Frick.

"It's Joel," said Frick, feeling that it was expected of him to furnish an answer.

"Joel?" cried Jasper, the color going out of his cheek.

"Yes, Joel can't be found," said old Mr. King, speaking lightly to hide the dismay he really felt. "It's all right, of course; he's probably at one of the boys' houses; only as he was to join Frick, why, I'd prefer to look him up a bit. Well, there's Thomas"--glancing out of the window.

"Oh, let me go for him," begged Jasper. "I can find him. Surely, you don't need to, Father; don't, pray, in all this rain."

"I am going after Joel," declared his father, quite obstinately, "so say no more about it, Jasper"--moving past him to the door. "Come, along, Frick, my boy, you might as well come, too."

"Let me go, too," cried Jasper. "Oh, Father, can't I? I can at least help."

He didn't say "take care of you," but he really felt anxious to the last degree.

"Yes, yes," said his father, "of course you may come if you like." So Jasper, well pleased, rushed for his mackintosh, and all three got into the carriage, and Thomas whirled them off in his best style.

"It isn't really worth while to worry Mrs. Fisher," said old Mr. King when well on the way, "for we shall probably soon run across Joel as bright as a b.u.t.ton, and gay as a lark. Bless me, how this rain comes down!"

XIX

JOEL'S NEW FRIEND

But no Joel "bright as a b.u.t.ton and gay as a lark" came in sight. Instead, at a corner they were turning rapidly, Mr. King in desperation giving the order to drive to one of the boys' houses most likely to attract Joel's attention this morning, Thomas came to an abrupt halt that nearly threw the horses back on their haunches.

"What are you about there?" he cried in vexation. "Can't you keep out from under the horses' heels, I'd like to know?"