As the winter days went by, Kettle grew stronger, and was able to sit up in a little chair by the kitchen fire. Betty spent many hours amusing him, his little round, black face delighted with the simple games she taught him and the stories she told him. His Christmas presents had been given him, and of them all his new pocket-knife was his chief delight. He would sit by the hour before the kitchen fire, whittling industriously, and Aunt Tulip never once complained of the clutter he made. Betty charmed him by occasionally wearing the great green and gilt brooch, and the Colonel religiously read through "The Principles of Hydraulics in Mining." In the evening, before Aunt Tulip put him to bed, it was Kettle's treat to be helped into the sitting-room and to listen to Betty playing and singing to her harp, or the Colonel playing on his violin. The boy's arms had been frightfully burned, but his hands had escaped. Several times he said to Betty, with a strange look of distress upon his little black face:
"Miss Betty, I want to arsk you sumpin'. I want you to arsk the doctor sumpin'."
"What is it, Kettle?" Betty would inquire.
"I tell you pres'ny," Kettle would reply. But the "pres'ny" did not come for a long time. Then, one day in March, when Kettle was able to walk about and was almost well, he crept up to Betty in the garden, and said to her hesitatingly:
"Miss Betty, what I want you to arsk the doctor is, whether I kin ever play the fiddle agin. I been tryin' to arsk 'im, but somehow I k'yarn' do it."
"Certainly, I will ask the doctor, Kettle," answered Betty cheerfully, "and I am sure you will be able to play the fiddle. Yonder is Doctor Markham's buggy coming down the lane."
Betty met the doctor at the house door. Kettle had slipped away; he evidently had not the courage to stay. Then Betty put her question.
"Certainly he will be able to play the fiddle," replied Dr. Markham, smiling over his spectacles. "That little fellow is as hard as nails. There isn't one child in a hundred who would have survived such injuries. But he'll be all right."
Betty called Kettle, who reappeared around the corner of the house. He came slouching up, with a faint shadow of his former grin upon his face. Something in Betty's eyes told him that there was good news for him.
