limp and dead-looking. If she lives she'll be a cripple. Oh, my arm! my arm! I wish they'd cut it off! I'd rather not have it at all than have it hurt like this."
Impulsive Dotty tried to move her injured arm and then shrieked with the pain it caused her.
"You mustn't do that!" said Nurse Johnson somewhat severely; "if you try to move that arm it won't heal right and you'll have to have it broken over again and re-set."
Dotty glared at the nurse and then screamed: "I hate you! You go right straight out of this house! My mother can take care of me good enough and I don't want you around."
"There, there, Dotty dear," said Mrs. Rose; "don't talk to nurse like that. She has been very kind to you; and it's true if you move your arm around like that or try to do so, you'll make your injury far worse."
"I don't care! I want to make it worse! I want to have it cut off! I won't have a broken arm,— I won't— I won't!"
"Don't mind her, nurse; she's beside herself with pain and fright."
"Oh, that's all right, Mrs. Rose," and the white-capped nurse smiled; "I don't blame little girls for being cantankerous when they're laid up like this. It's awful hard on them and nobody knows it better than I do. And I'm not going to stay long, Miss Dotty. Only a day or two till your mother and aunt get the knack of taking care of you."
"I shall be head nurse," said Mrs. Bayliss, smiling at Dotty, "and your mother shall be my assistant."
"I don't want you for my nurse, Aunt Clara, and I don't want Miss Johnson, I just want Mother all the time."
"Yes, Dotty, dear, Mother will be here all the time," and Mrs. Rose gently stroked the moist dark curls back from the little brow.
For a few moments Dotty was quieter, and then she screamed out again, "Tell me about Dolly, tell me the truth about Dolly. Did she break both her legs?"
"No, dear, only one. It has been set and she is doing nicely, although she will be in bed for a long time. You will probably get up and go to see her long before she can come in here."
"I want to go now!" and Dotty tried to rise; "I want to see Dolly! I must see Dolly!"
Gently but firmly the nurse held Dotty down on the pillows. "Lie still," she commanded, for she saw that stern measures were necessary.
"I can't lie still, when I don't know how Dolly is! I don't believe what you tell me about her. But I'll believe Genie. She always tells me the truth. Come here, Genie!"
Dotty screamed her sister's name in a loud voice, and the little girl came running into the sick room.
Genie looked scared and white-faced as she saw Dotty in splints and bandages.
"Genie," said Dotty, and her black eyes burned like coals, "you go straight over to Fayres and see Dolly. See for yourself and see just how she is and come straight back and tell me."
"Let her go," said the nurse; "that's a good idea."
So Genie ran over to the next house and found Mrs. Fayre.
"Please let me see Dolly," she said earnestly, "'cause if I don't Dotty thinks she's dead, and then Dotty will die too, so please let me see her, Mrs. Fayre. Can't I?"
After some consideration Mrs. Fayre said Genie might go to Dolly's room for a few moments.
"How are you, Dolly?" said the child, marching in and standing by the bedside with the air of a Royal Messenger.
"I'm pretty good," and Dolly smiled wanly at her little visitor. "How's Dotty?"
"Dotty's awful. But she'll be better when she knows how you are. So tell me zactly."
"Well, tell Dotty my right leg is broken. One of the bones just above the ankle. But tell her except for that, I'm all right and for her not to worry about me and we'll see who can get well first. And give her my love and—and—oh, that's all, good-bye, Genie!"
The little girl ran out of the room and as soon as she disappeared Dolly burst into floods of weeping. That was her way of relieving her overburdened nerves instead of screaming hysterically like Dotty.
Trudy tried to soothe her, but there was no staying the torrent of tears, until at last they stopped because Dolly was exhausted.
"There," said Mrs. Fayre brightly as she wiped Dolly's eyes, "I'm just glad you did that! There's nothing like a good cry to straighten things out. Now I shouldn't be one bit surprised if you could take a nice little nap." And Dolly did so.
Meantime Genie trotted home with her comforting news for Dotty.
"Dolly's all right," she announced. "'Cept one leg is broked. But that's all. Only just one bone of one leg. And she says to see who'll get well first."
"How did she look?" asked Dotty eagerly.
"Like a angel," replied Genie, enthusiastically. "Her face was all white and her eyes were so blue and her hair was all goldy and braided in two curly braids tickling around her ears. Oh, she looked lovely! Heaps better than you do, Dot. Your face is all red and splotchy, and your eyes are as big as saucers and your hair looks like the dickens."
"I don't care," said Dotty, crossly; "I don't care how I look."
"But I care how you feel," said her mother, "and now you know that Dolly is very much alive, I'm sure you'll let nurse bathe your face and brush your hair and then I'm going to sing you to sleep."
As is usual in case of broken bones the first night proved a very trying time for all concerned.
Dolly Fayre, though an unusually patient child, felt as if she could not bear the pain and discomfort of her strapped and splinted leg. Her mother and Trudy, and her father too, did all they could to alleviate her sufferings, but the uncontrollable tears welled up in the blue eyes and rolled over the fevered cheeks of the little sufferer.
"I try to be good, Father," she said, as Mr. Fayre bent over her, "but it does hurt so awful."
"Does it, you dear blessed baby? Let Daddy cuddle your head in his arm, so, and sing to you, maybe that will help."
But when Mr. Fayre gently put his arm under the golden head on the pillow Dolly cried out that his coat sleeve was too scratchy.
"Well, now, we'll just fix that! Give me one of your dressing gowns, Mother."
Dolly had to laugh a little when Mrs. Fayre brought a silk kimono of her own and managed to get its loose folds draped around her stalwart husband.
"Now I rather guess we won't scratch our poor little fevery cheeks," and Mr. Fayre so deftly slipped his silk clad arm under Dolly's head, that she rested in his strong clasp with a feeling of security and comfort.
"That's lovely, Daddy; it just seems as if I had some of your big strong strength and my pain doesn't hurt so much."
Then Mr. Fayre sang in soft low tones which greatly soothed the little patient. But not for long. All through the night the paroxysms of agony would recur and poor little Dolly cried like a baby, because she couldn't possibly help it.
But the Rose family had even worse times to take care of Dotty. She, too, suffered intensely and even made it worse because she wouldn't stay still. With a sudden jerk she would sit up in bed and then scream with the pain occasioned by wrenching her injured arm.
"You mustn't do that, dear," said Mr. Rose, who usually could calm Dotty in her most wilful moments.
"I have to!" cried the little girl; "you would, too, if your arm was all on fire, and shooting needles into you and not set right and has to be broken over again and all twisted up and hanging by a thread, anyway! Ow!—ow!—OW!!" Her voice rose in a shrill screech and she rocked back and forth in her pain and anger.
"Now, Dotty dear," said her father, "you must realise that you make matters a great deal worse by jumping around and moving your arm—"
"But I can't