"Goodness!" said Grace; "he's broken his leg as well as his pitcher. Colonial Dames! What nonsense! Well, I can't leave him here."
She had her smelling-salts in her satchel, but before she could find them, Grace's satchel being an omnium gatherum of remarkable a miscellaneous character, the lad came to. A fainting person will usually regain consciousness soon if laid out flat, with the head a little lower than the body. I've seen people persist in keeping a fainting friend in a sitting position, which is very stupid and quite cruel.
"I am Doctor Wainwright's daughter," said Grace, "and I see my father's gig turning the corner of the road. You shall have help directly. Papa will know what to do, so lie still where you are."
[Illustration: GRACE'S FLAG OF DISTRESS.]
The lad obeyed, there plainly being nothing else to be done. In a second Doctor Wainwright, at Grace's flag of distress, a white handkerchief waving from the top of her parasol, came toward her at the mare's fastest pace.
"Hello!" he said. "Here's Archie Vanderhoven in a pickle."
"As usual, doctor," said Archie, faintly. "I've broken mother's last pitcher."
"And your leg, I see," observed the doctor, with professional directness. "Well, my boy, you must be taken home. Grace, drive home for me, and tell the boys to bring a cot here as soon as possible. Meanwhile I'll set Archie's leg. It's only a simple fracture." And the doctor, from his black bag, brought out bandages and instruments. No army surgeon on the field of battle was quicker and gentler than Doctor Wainwright, whose skill was renowned all over our country-side.
"What is there about the Vanderhovens?" inquired Grace that night as they sat by the blaze of hickory logs in the cheery parlor of Wishing-Brae.
"The Vanderhovens are a decayed family," her father answered. "They were once very well off and lived in state, and from far and near gay parties were drawn at Easter and Christmas to dance under their roof. Now they are run out. This boy and his mother are the last of the line. Archie's father was drowned in the ford when we had the freshet last spring. The Ramapo, that looks so peaceful now, overflowed its banks then, and ran like a mill-race. I don't know how they manage, but Archie is kept at school, and his mother does everything from ironing white frocks for summer boarders to making jellies and preserves for people in town, who send her orders."