“All right with me,” agreed Mickey.
“You just hold still so this doesn’t make
you sick, and to-morrow you can see things when you
are all nice and rested.”
“Mickey,” she whispered.
Mickey bent and what he heard buried his face against
Peaches’ a second and when lifted it radiated
a shining glory-light, for she had whispered:
“Mickey, I’m going to always mind you and
love you best of anybody.”
Because she had expected the trip to result in the
bringing home of the child, Mrs. Harding had made
ready a low folding davenport in her first-floor
bedroom, beside a window where grass, birds and trees
were almost in touch, and where it would be convenient
to watch and care for her visitor. There in the
light, pretty room, Mickey gently laid Peaches down
and said: “Now if you’ll just give
me time to get her rested and settled a little, you
can see her a peep; but there ain’t going to
be much seeing or talking to-night. If
she has such a lot she ain’t used to and gets
sick, it will be a bad thing for her, and all of us,
so we better just go slow and easy.”
“Right you are, young man,” said Peter.
“Come out of here you kids! Come to the
back yard and play quietly. When Little White
Butterfly gets rested and fed, we’ll come one
at a time and kiss her hand, and wish her pleasant
dreams with us, and then we’ll every one of us
get down on our knees and ask God to help us take
such good care of her that she will get well at our
house.”
Mickey suddenly turned his back on them and tried
to swallow the lump in his throat. Then he arranged
his family so it was not in a draft, sponged and fed
it, and failed in the remainder of his promise, because
it went to sleep with the last bite and lay in deep
exhaustion. So Mickey smoothed the sheet, slipped
off the ribbon, brushed back the curls, shaded the
light, marshalled them in on tiptoe, and with anxious
heart studied their compassionate faces.
Then he telephoned Douglas Bruce to ask permission
to be away from the office the following day, and
ventured as far from the house as he felt he dared
with Junior; but so anxious was he that he kept in
sight of the window. And so manly and tender
was his scrupulous care, so tiny and delicate his
small charge as she lay waxen, lightly breathing to
show she really lived, that in the hearts of the Harding
family grew a deep respect for Mickey, and such was
their trust in him, that when he folded his comfort
and stretched it on the floor beside the child, not
even to each other did they think of uttering an objection.
So Peaches spent her first night in the country breathing
clover air, watched constantly by her staunch protector,
and carried to the foot of the Throne on the lips of
one entire family; for even Bobbie was told to add
to his prayer: “God bless the little sick
girl, and make her well at our house.”
An Orphans’ Home
