“My brave boy!” she cried. “He’s our boy, now, ain’t he, Jack, as long as he wants t’ stay?”
“That’s jest what I was tellin’ him, Mary dear,” said Jack.
“But he’s limpin’,” she cried. “What’s th’ matter? Y’re not hurted, Allan?”
“Not very badly,” answered the boy. “No bones broken—just a knock on the leg that took the skin off.”
“Come on home this instant,” commanded Mary, “an’ we’ll see.”
“Ain’t y’ goin’ t’ kiss Mamie?” questioned Jack.
“She don’t deserve t’ be kissed!” protested her mother. “She’s been a bad girl—how often have I told her never t’ lave th’ yard?”
Mamie was weeping bitter tears of repentance, and her mother suddenly softened and caught her to her breast.
“I—I won’t be bad no more!” sobbed Mamie.
“I should hope not! An’ what d’ y’ say t’ Allan? If it hadn’t ’a’ been fer him, you’d ’a’ been ground up under th’ wheels.”
“I—I lubs him!” cried Mamie, with a very tender look at our hero.
She held up her lips, and Allan bent and kissed them.
“Well, m’ boy,” laughed Jack, as the triumphal procession moved on again toward the house, “you seem t’ have taken this family by storm, fer sure!”
“Come along!” cried Mary. “Mebbe th’ poor lad’s hurted worse’n he thinks.”
She hurried him along before her up the path, sat him down in a chair, and rolled up his trousers leg.
“It’s nothing,” protested Allan. “It’s nothing—it’s not worth worrying about.”
“_Ain’t_ it!” retorted Mary, with compressed lips, removing shoe and sock and deftly cutting away the blood-stained underwear. “_Ain’t_ it? You poor boy, look at that!”
And, indeed, it was rather an ugly-looking wound that lay revealed. The flesh had been crushed and torn by the heavy blow, and was bleeding and turning black.
“It’s a mercy it didn’t break your leg!” she added. “Jack, you loon!” she went on, with a fierceness assumed to keep herself from bursting into tears, “don’t stand starin’ there, but bring me a basin o’ hot water, an’ be quick about it!”
Jack _was_ quick about it, and in a few moments the wound was washed and nicely dressed with a cooling lotion which Mary produced from a cupboard.
“I keep it fer Jack,” Mary explained, as she spread it tenderly over the wound. “He’s allers gittin’ pieces knocked off o’ him. Now how does it feel, Allan darlint?” “It feels fine,” Allan declared. “It doesn’t hurt a bit. It’ll be all right by morning.”