Chip, of the Flying U by B. M. Bower (best way to read e books .TXT) 📕
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- Author: B. M. Bower
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“Dell!” exclaimed the Old Man, “you're white's a rag. Doggone it, don't throw up yer hands at yer first case—brace up!”
Chip looked up at her curiously, forgetting the pain long enough to wonder at her whiteness. Did she have a heart, then, or was it a feminine trait to turn pale in every emergency? She had not turned so very white when those kids—he felt inclined to laugh, only for that cussed foot. Instead he relaxed his vigilance and a groan slipped out before he knew.
“Just a minute more and I'll ease the pain for you,” murmured the girl, compassionately.
“All right—so long as you—don't—use—the stomach pump,” he retorted, with a miserable makeshift of a laugh.
“What's that?” asked the Old Man, but no one explained.
The Little Doctor was struggling with the lump in her throat that he should try to joke about it.
Then Weary was back and holding the little, black case out to her. She seized it eagerly, slipping Chip's head to her knees that she might use her hands freely. There was no halting over the tiny vials, for she had decided just what she must do.
She laid something against Chip's closed lips.
“Swallow these,” she said, and he obeyed her. “Weary—oh, you knew what to do, I see. There, lay the coat down there for a pillow.”
Relieved of her burden, she rose and went to the poor, twisted foot.
Weary and the Old Man watched her go to work systematically and disclose the swollen, purpling ankle. Very gently she did it, and when she had administered a merciful anaesthetic, the enthusiasm of the Old Man demanded speech.
“Well, I'll be eternally doggoned! You're onto your job, Dell, doggoned if yuh ain't. I won't ever josh yuh again about yer doctorin'!”
“I wish you'd been around the time I smashed MY ankle,” commented Weary, fishing for his cigarette book; he was beginning to feel the need of a quieting smoke. “They hauled me forty miles, to Benton.”
“That must have been torture!” shuddered the Little Doctor. “A dislocated ankle is a most agonizing thing.”
“Yes,” assented Weary, striking a match, “it sure is, all right.”
CHAPTER XI. — Good Intentions.
“Mr. Davidson, have you nerve enough to help me replace this ankle? The Countess is too nervous, and J. G. is too awkward.”
Chip was lying oblivious to his surroundings or his hurt in the sunny, south room which Dunk Whitaker chose to call his.
“I've never been accused of wanting nerve,” grinned Weary. “I guess I can stand it if you can.” And a very efficient assistant he proved himself to be.
When the question of a nurse arose, when all had been done that could be done and Weary had gone, the Little Doctor found herself involved in an argument with the Countess. The Countess wanted them to send for Bill. Bill just thought the world and all of Chip, she declared, and would just love to come. She was positive that Bill was the very one they needed, and the Little Doctor, who had conceived a violent dislike for Bill, a smirky, self-satisfied youth addicted to chewing tobacco, red neckties and a perennial grin, was equally positive he was the very one they did not want. In despair she retrenched herself behind the assertion that Chip should choose for himself.
“I just know he'll choose Bill,” crowed the Countess after the flicker of the doctor's skirts.
Chip turned his head rebelliously upon the pillow and looked up at her. Something in his eyes brought to mind certain stormy crises in the headstrong childhood of the Little Doctor-crises in which she was forced to submission very much against her will. It was the same mutinous surrender to overwhelming strength, the same futile defiance of fate.
“I came to ask you who you would rather have to nurse you,” she said, trying to keep the erratic color from crimsoning her cheeks. You see, she had never had a patient of her very own before, and there were certain embarrassing complications in having this particular young man in charge.
Chip's eyes wandered wistfully to the window, where a warm, spring breeze flapped the curtains in and out.
“How long have I got to lie here?” he asked, reluctantly.
“A month, at the least—more likely six weeks,” she said with kind bluntness. It was best he should know the worst at once.
Chip turned his face bitterly to the wall for a minute and traced an impossible vine to its breaking point where the paper had not been properly matched. Twenty miles away the boys were hurrying through their early dinner that they might catch up their horses for the afternoon's work. And they had two good feet to walk on, two sound arms to subdue restless horseflesh and he was not there! He could fairly smell the sweet, trampled sod as the horses circled endlessly inside the rope corral, and hear them snort when a noose swished close. He wondered who would get his string to ride, and what they would do with his bed.
He didn't need it, now; he would lie on wire springs, instead of on the crisp, prairie grass. He would be waited on like a yearling baby and— “The Countess just knows you will choose Bill,” interrupted a whimsical girl voice.
Chip said something which the Little Doctor did not try to hear distinctly. “Don't she think I've had enough misery dealt me for once?” he asked, without taking his eyes from the poor, broken vine. He rather pitied the vine—it seemed to have been badly used by fate, just as he had been. He was sure it had not wanted to stop right there on that line, as it had been forced to do. HE had not wanted to stop, either. He—“She says Bill would just love to come,” said the voice, with a bit of a laugh in it.
Chip, turning his head back suddenly, looked into the gray eyes and felt inexplicably cheered. He almost believed she understood something of what it all meant to him. And she mercifully refrained from spoken pity, which he felt he could not have borne just then. His lips took back some of their curve.
“You tell her I wouldn't just love to have him,” he said, grimly.
“I'd never dare. She dotes on Bill. Whom DO you want?”
“When it comes to that, I don't want anybody. But if you could get Johnny Beckman to come—”
“Oh, I will—I'll go myself, to make sure of him. Which one is Johnny?”
“Johnny's the red-headed one,” said Chip.
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