"Can he get up to breakfast, do you think, nurse?"
"Well, rather!" Dick stated. "Wash me quick, nurse, dear, and take me out. I want to see trees and scrub, and bacon frying, and everything. Oh--cocoa? Well, all right!" He submitted to be fed, more or less meekly.
So the days passed, one like the other. They left the main roads as they came near civilisation, finding good camping places, since Dick showed that he had a dread of being taken to hotels. "I don't want to be carted in and out, with people staring at me," he pleaded. "And the bush is so lovely. You don't mind camping, mother?" She would have lain on the bare earth to keep the ring of happiness in his voice. They made each day's journey short, so that the vibration, however softened, should not affect him. It never tired him to be in the open, watching them move about the camp. His old keen interest awoke again. They made a point of consulting him about everything, so that he should feel himself an active part of each day's life, his father desiring his opinion about the set of a tent rope with earnestness equal to that of Mr. Warner when he carried a pan of bacon to his side to find out if it were properly cooked. The motor driver entered into the spirit of it, and discoursed to him learnedly on the finer parts of his car's anatomy; and no one thought of watching the billy, since it was Dick's job to attend to it, and to call out when the steam poured from the lid. Merle had a task all her own. From the moment they halted each day she sought through the bush tirelessly bringing to his bedside whatever treasures she could gather--flowers, deserted nests, curiously marked stones, gorgeous beetles; all that keen eyes could find. Dick grew to look for her collections with delighted interest. "My word, you are a brick, the way you find things!" he told her.
As she had begged Mrs. Lester, so her desire came to her--she was indeed "legs" to him. He could not shake off his innate distaste for asking older people to run about for him. Even with the nurses he would go without something he wanted rather than send one on an errand. Somehow, Merle was different. He began to look on her rather as a younger brother; to find it easy to employ one whose eagerness to be employed was evident in every look. He never omitted thanks, but she did not want them. Her gratitude was for being used--thanks did not matter.