"Oh, I just love them!"

"So do I. You must know a great many. The Doctor said you told them to the children. I wish there was time for you to tell me one."

"I'm afraid there is n't to-day," responded Polly; "but maybe I can stay longer when I come again."

"I hope so," returned David politely. "My mother read me a story the evening before I was hurt. It was about a king and queen that lived beautiful stories, and I was going to live such a brave, splendid one every day--and then the horse knocked me down!

Such a lot of miserable stories as I've lived since I came here, not much like the ones I'd planned! But to-day's will be better, because you'll be in it," he ended brightly.

Polly's eyes had been growing rounder and rounder with surprise and delight.

"Oh! Was it a Cherry-Pudding Story?" she asked eagerly.

"Why, have you read it?" and the little white face actually grew pink. "My aunt wrote it, and sent us a paper that had it in!"

"Why--ee!" cried Polly. "is n't that funny! And we've been trying to live nice stories, too--all of us, up in the ward!

Miss Lucy said we'd see which could live the best one. A lady told me the story. And your aunt really made it all up?"

"Yes; she writes lots of stories," smiled David. "Then she sends them to mamma and me and wen they're printed."

"How splendid!" beamed Polly. "When you get well enough to come down in our ward, you can tell us some, can't you?"

The boy's face saddened. "I guess I can't ever come," he said.

"Why not?"

"Because I was hurt so badly. I don't think I'm going to get well."

"Oh, yes, you will!" a.s.serted Polly. "Of course Dr. Dudley will cure you! Goodness! You ought to have seen how I was all smashed up! But Dr. Dudley cured me--he can cure anybody!"

"He can?" echoed David, a little doubtfully. "How 'd you get hurt? Were you run over?"

"Yes, by a building," Polly laughed. "Only it did n't run; it fell. I was 'way up on the third floor, and all of a sudden it went--just like that!" Polly's little hands dropped flat in her lap. "I heard a great noise, and felt myself going, and I remember I clutched hold of Uncle Gregory. Then I did n't know another thing till I woke up over in that corner. See that bed with the dark-haired little girl in it, the third from the end?

That was my cot."

"Was your leg broken?" asked David, in a most interested tone.

"Yes, my leg was broken, and my hip was _discolated_ (Polly sometimes twisted her long words a little), and my ankle was hurt, and two ribs, and, oh, lots of things! Doctor says now that he really did n't think I'd ever walk again--I mean, without crutches."

"And you're not lame a bit?" David returned incredulously.

"Not a mite, not the least mite!" Polly a.s.sured him.

"Then perhaps I shall get well," the boy began brightly.

"Of course you will!" broke in Dr. Dudley's happy voice.

He put his hand on the lad's wrist, and stood for a moment, noting his pulse.

"It does n't seem to hurt you to have visitors," he smiled; "but they must n't stay too long. Say good-bye, Polly."

"Will you bring her again tomorrow?" invited David timidly. "And let her stay long enough to tell me a story?"

"I should n't wonder," the Doctor promised. And they left the boy smiling as he had not smiled since he had been in the hospital.

After that, Polly went every day to see David, until, one morning, Dr. Dudley told her that he was not quite well enough to have a visitor. She had come to look forward to her quiet talks with the blue-eyed lad as the happiest portion of the whole day, for Miss Hortensia Price still stayed in the convalescent ward, and the Doctor had been too busy to take her out in his automobile. Elsie and Brida and Aimee and the rest were all good comrades, yet none of them possessed David's powers of quick comprehension. Often Polly had to explain things to them; David always kept up with her thought--there was the difference. And David, notwithstanding his present p.r.o.neness to discouragement, was a most winsome boy.

So the first day that she was not allowed to maker her customary visit seemed a long day indeed, and eagerly she awaited the next morning. But several days pa.s.sed before she again saw David.

Then it was but for a very few minutes, and he was so wan and weak that she went away feeling sorrowful and anxious. Yet Dr. Dudley told her that she had done his patient good. That was a slight comfort.

The next day, and the next, the lad was again too ill for company, and a few sentences which Polly overheard filled her with foreboding. She was putting fresh sheets on one of the cots--a task which she had learned to do well--when she caught David's name.

"His heart is very weak," one of the stairs nurses was saying to Miss Price. "He can't stand many more such sinking spells. Dr.

Dudley has given orders to be called at once, day or night, if he should have another."

Here the voice dropped, and Polly could not catch the words; but she had heard enough. The sheet went on crookedly. Polly did not know it, her eyes were so blurred with tears. She kept the sorry news to herself, and all day long the children wondered what made Polly so sober.

If she could have seen Dr. Dudley she would have asked him about David; but for several days she caught only pa.s.sing glimpses of him, when he was too busy to be questioned. The little girl grew more and more anxious, but kept hoping that because she heard nothing David must be better.

It was during the short absence of Miss Price, one afternoon, that Elsie Meyer complained of the disagreeable liniment on her hip.

"It's just horrid! I can't stand it a minute longer!" she fretted.

"Say, Polly, I wish you'd spray some of that nice-smellin' stuff around--what do you call it?"

"The resodarizer, I guess you mean," responded Polly, with more glibness than accuracy.

"Yes, that's it," Elsie returned. "Hurry up and use it, before High Price gets back!"

"Perhaps I'd better wait and ask her," she hesitated.

"No, don't! Miss Lucy always lets you take it," Elsie urged.

"Yes, I know," doubtfully. Then she went to the shelf in the dressing-room, where the atomizer box stood.

"There is n't a drop in it," she said, holding the bottle to the light. "Miss Lucy must have forgotten to fill it after I used it last time." Then, spying a small phial on the shelf, close to where the box had been, "Oh I guess she left it for me to fill!"

And, uns.c.r.e.w.i.n.g the chunky little bottle from the spraying apparatus, she soon had it half full.

Elsie smiled in blissful antic.i.p.ation of the refreshing perfume, but as the spray fell near her she greeted it with a torrent of cries.

"Ugh, ugh! O-o-h! take it away!"

Then Polly, too, puckered her face in disgust. "Why, I must have put--"

"What are you doing with that atomizer?" interrupted Miss Price's voice. "How came kerosene oil in here? Have you been spraying it around?"

"I did n't know it was kerosene," answered Polly meekly. "I s'posed it was the resodarizer--"

"Deoderizer, child!"

"Oh, yes, I get it twisted! It's that kind that smells so nice."