But the result of the call was that at the end of the week Dr. King

went up to the Stuffed Animal House.

"We are shipwrecked!" cried Mrs. Richie, as she saw him coming down

the garden path towards the barn. Her face was flushed and gay, and

her hair, shaken from its shining wreath around her head, hung in two

braids down her back. She had had a swing put up under the big

buttonwood beside the stable, and David, climbing into it, had clung

to the rigging to be dashed, side wise, on to the rocks of the

carriageway, where Mrs. Richie stood ready to catch him when the

vessel should drive near enough to the shore. In an endeavor to save

himself from some engulfing sea which his playmate had pointed out to

him, David had clutched at her, breaking the top hook of her gown and

tearing her collar apart, leaving throat, white and round, open to the

hot sun. Before the doctor reached her, she caught her dress together,

and twisted her hair into a knot. "You can't keep things smooth in a

shipwreck," she excused herself, laughing.

David sighed, and looked into the carriage-house. In that jungle--Mrs.

Richie had called it a jungle--were wild beasts; there were also

crackers and apples--or to be exact, breadfruit and citrons--hanging

from what George called "harness-racks," though of course, as

thoughtful persons know, they were trees; David was to gather these

tropical spoils, and then escape from the leopard, the shark, the

crocodile! And now there was Dr. King, spoiling everything.

The doctor sat down on a keg and looked at the two, smiling. "Which is

the younger of you?" he said. It came over him, in a gust of

amusement, what Martha would say to such a scene, and he laughed

aloud.

"Dr. King," said David, in a small distinct voice, "won't Jinny run

away, if you leave her so long at gate?"

"Oh, David!" cried Mrs. Richie, horrified. But the visitor threw back

his head with a shout.

"That's what my wife would call speaking 'flatly and frankly'! Well,

Mrs. Richie, I never wrote a better prescription in my life. You look

like a different woman, already."

And, indeed, the youth in her face was as careless as David's own. But

it flagged when he added that he hoped her brother would not think the

care of David would be too much for her.

"Oh, no," she said, briefly.

"I feel like saying 'I told you so'! I knew you would like to have a

child about."




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