The youngster, in an instant gesture, threw out wide arms with spread fingers and nodded emphatically.
“That’s just edsactly the truth, because he has needed to go for months and months and Doctor Grayson’s told him to go, and coaxed him to go, and tried to make him go, and none of them could make him. He thought he’d do anything in the world for me. He said he would. So when I saw that he wasn’t going to go and couldn’t be made to go”—there was a sudden straightening of the small figure and a squaring of the shoulders—“I didn’t tell him to go to the hospital. I told him to stay at home and do what he felt like,” and here the youngster chuckled, “’cause I knew darn well that was what he was goin’ to do anyway, and I didn’t want to spoil my record! When you got a position to hold you might as well look a little to keeping up your fences.”
There was no reason that Jamie could see as to why he should not laugh, and anyway, he had done it before he knew it was coming. But it did not disconcert the small person; not a particle.
“When will they operate?”
The question upset Jamie. He slowly shook his head.
“I don’t even know what his trouble is,” he said.
“Neither do I,” said the child. “I guess it’s the only thing on earth that really hurt his heart that he didn’t tell me about. He told me about all the things that hurt him and drove him from his home in the East, and about the little girl with gold hair that he had to give up in such
