"Good--ouch!" An attempt to move was the cause of the peculiar response.

She came to his a.s.sistance. "Isn't that better?"

"Yes, thank you. I forgot about yesterday's troubles while I slept.

How could I get so many sore spots when I only struck in one place?"

he asked.

The nurse laughed as she inspected his chart. "How's your head this morning?"

"Sister--" he grinned good humoredly--"that dome of mine has completely recovered. I am healing from the top down."

She raised a shade and a ray of sunshine flashed across the foot of his bed. "Isn't that better? It's a beautiful day."

He rolled and twisted his eyes until he was able to get a glimpse of a bit of blue sky through the window. His face registered great regret.

"What a day for a two or three hundred mile spin, sister," he mused.

Again she examined his chart. "Say, Mr. Joseph Tolliver Curtis," she remonstrated sharply.

"Those who love me call me Joe," he interrupted in a gentle voice as he watched with great interest and amus.e.m.e.nt the snap in her hazel eyes.

She disregarded the brazen hint and proceeded to reprimand. "It's time for you to cut out this 'sister' business. I might stand for it once in awhile but you have a chronic case of it. You took a spin yesterday which is going to make us intimate acquaintances for some time."

"Oh death, where is thy sting?" he interjected.

Perfectly oblivious to his remark, she continued, "It will be better, particularly for you, if our acquaintance is a pleasant one. You will call me--Miss Knight--Mr. Curtis," she intimated with a grave dignity which the wayward blonde curls beneath her cap did not loyally support.

"'Night, sable G.o.ddess, from ebon throne descends,'" he quoted with dramatic emphasis. "Do you furnish breakfast as well as lectures on behavior in this hospital?"

She retired with great hauteur between smiling masculine eyes to the end of the ward. Suddenly, she whirled and waved her hand at the injured one, and, as if addressing an old and intimate friend, called, "You can have your breakfast in a minute, Joe."

In his apartment above the garage at the Dale home, Ike was awakened by the shrill alarm of an electric bell rung from a b.u.t.ton pressed by Serena in the comfort of her own bed. Thus he arose betimes of necessity, rather than from personal desire to salute the rising sun.

Breathing deeply, the spirit of the morning entered into the chauffeur's veins as he watched a couple of fat robins enjoying a breakfast of elastic worms pulled from the moist earth. Lifting his voice in m.u.f.fled song, he ran the big car out of the garage, and, opening its bonnet, reclined on the radiator and lazily looked at the engine.

Like a high priestess veiled in clouds of incense while engaged in holy mysteries, Serena moved about her kitchen in the midst of appetizing odors, preparing coffee, frying ham and cooking waffles for the morning refreshment of the Dales. Now, as if such dainties were insufficient, she brought forth another skillet and put diverse parts of a fowl therein, and with skilled, fork-armed hand shifted them about until they sissled and hissed and fried.

The morning breeze faintly wafted pleasing odors to Ike. They a.s.sailed his nostrils delightfully. He breathed yet a little deeper and sang yet a little louder. Closing the bonnet, he climbed into a seat that he might, in pleasant antic.i.p.ation, rest from labor. Suddenly, there came to him a more delicious scent. He sniffed in disbelief that fate could be so kind, but his experienced olfactory nerves rea.s.sured him.

In such matters, they could not err.

"Chicken!" He sniffed and sought appropriate outlet for joy. With a roar which shook the early peace of the neighborhood as a salute of artillery, Ike raced the engine of the machine and in the midst of this diabolical furore, he sang a paean of joy.

The uproar smote the calm of Serena's kitchen. She jerked with alarm, but the wisdom of years a.s.serted itself. Rushing out on the stoop she fixed indignant eyes on the chauffeur. "You, Ike," she cried, "stop dat noise."

He returned her words with a cheery smile of trust and confidence.

Deafened by his own row, he judged that she desired speech with him. The engine slowed and the noise decreased until there could be distinguished the words of a ballad of strenuous love,

"Ah kissed 'er in de mouf An' ah hugged 'er in de souf."

"Ain' you know bettah an' to mek a noise dat a way, dis time in de mo'ning?" the irritated cook inquired.

"Ah ain' mek no noise, Miss Sereny. Hit de _caah_," he made reply in pleasant tones. It would be folly to irritate unduly the custodian of the chicken lest the fowl be consumed before friendly relations could be reestablished. His black face was bathed in good humor as he went on.

"Miss Sereny, ma hand an' ma foot done slip."

That smile disarmed the cook. It was his strongest weapon, but Ike usually resorted to a sullen obstinacy which infuriated her, to his undoing. She glared at him for a moment and then his smile and the spirit of the morning claimed her. "You bettah watch you' step, den,"

she returned, and their voices blended in a boisterous gust of laughter.

Ike's salute to his favorite fowl awakened Virginia from her sleep with a start. Sitting up in bed, she cast a frightened glance about her pretty bedroom. For a moment she listened intently, drawn up in a little white heap on her bed, her blue eyes misty with dreams, peeping out from a frame of towsled hair. "It's Ike running the engine,"

she decided.

She gave a little yawn as she poked her feet into her slippers and ran over to a window. From it she could look, between the tops of two great elms, across the valley in which South Ridgefield lay to the top of a small hill upon which, bathed in the morning sun, stood the brick hospital building. Her eyes rested upon it, thoughtfully, and she took a deep breath of morning air. She began to sing happily as she turned to dress.

Obadiah was shaving in his bath room. He used an old fashioned razor, the pride of his youth. His deep cut wrinkles made it a matter of care--almost a ceremony. Ike's disturbance nearly resulted in the amputation of a lip. Obadiah was peeved. Rushing to the window, he threw it open. He heard Serena's words of remonstrance and determined to dismiss Ike. He often did that.

Suddenly the morning breeze played caressingly about him. He pulled his bath robe closer to him and slammed the window down. His face felt stiff where the lather had dried upon it. "Darn the luck," growled Obadiah.

He washed his face, restropped his razor, reprepared his lather, and finally completed his shave by nicking his neck on his Adam's apple.

"Dang it all," he howled. The world was ill using Obadiah and he resented it. He dressed slowly and from his bedroom window moodily viewed his beautiful grounds.

Into his view danced Virginia, swinging a wide brimmed hat by its streamers and singing gaily as she made for a bed of sweet peas.

Obadiah watched her, but the harsh lines upon his face did not soften nor the irascible look fade. He gave a grim nod when the girl discovered him and shouted a merry greeting.

There was no one in the dining room when the manufacturer entered it that morning. He seated himself and began to eat his melon.

The rich voice of Serena with all of its carrying power came in at the window, "Yo' all bettah git in yere mighty fas'. You' Daddy done eat up all de breakfus'."

Then sounded the answering words of the girl, ringing silvery and sweet, "Ask Daddy to wait. I have some beautiful flowers for him."

Serena was suddenly beset with internal mutterings and grumblings and broke into incoherent utterances. "Ah ain' got no time--no time--flowers--tell him dat--No siree--Ah ain' no fool." A few moments later she entered the dining room worrying aloud. "Dat chil' gwine be fo'ced to eat a col' breakfus. Ah caint keep grub hot all day."

"She must learn to be on time at her meals," Obadiah scolded.

Serena gave him a look of stern disapprobation. "Dat gal miss 'er breakfus er gittin' flowers fo' yo' all."

Light feet ran through the hall and Virginia skipped into the room, her face flushed, her hair tossed and a bunch of sweet peas in either hand.

Unexpectedly, two soft arms were about Obadiah's neck. He found his face buried in a ma.s.s of blossoms while girlish laughter in peals of delight rang in his ears.

Virginia shifted her position to examine in mock solemnity the sober face of her father blinking from the ma.s.s of delicate colors. She gave a shout of amus.e.m.e.nt. "Daddy, you don't match very well." She shifted the bouquets about his face. "There, that is much better," she decided.

"Don't you think so, Serena?"

Obadiah sneezed.

"G.o.d bless you," Virginia whispered.

"Take those things out of my nose," protested Obadiah.

"You look so beautiful," the girl giggled. "Doesn't he, Serena?"

The colored woman watched the proceedings with great gravity. "Leave you' Daddy 'lone, chil'," she urged. "De breakfus gwine be ruined."