But Mother was an expert. She knew when you must and when you mustn"t; she had a talent for it. She also had a gift for telling David that she would see. If he wanted to go swimming with Mitch Horrigan in the creek near town, she said she would see about it, but somehow she never did get it seen about.
That was one great difference between her and Dr. Redfield. He did not say he would see; if given half a chance he always _did_ see, and there was something so magical about him that one felt he was good for a miracle most any time. For all that, it was hard to ask him for anything, for when in his presence one always felt so queer and bashful and overpowered with the strange medicine smells which were such a big part of him. Yet David now felt that no boy has any right to hope for a father if he hasn"t spirit enough to ask for one. So firmly convinced of this was the little boy that early in the morning he made up his mind as to what he would do. It was something very daring and very naughty.
He was going to run away.
He did it, too, and the awfulness of it got into his throat; for the Doctor lives farther away from David"s house than China is.
It is almost at the end of things, and the little boy did not know whether he could find it. What was even worse, he presently did not know whether he could get back home again. He had crept through the fence and run and run, and then walked and walked, and now he had decided that he didn"t care much about going on.
Some other time would do as well; to-morrow would be all right.
This did not feel like a lucky day; some other day would be luckier.
David felt very virtuous. It seemed to him that he had not meant to run away at all. He was not a bad little boy; he was a good little boy, but he soon began to feel annoyed; for the way home didn"t have any straightness to it; the way home began to get more and more crooked, and the houses began to seem strange and unfriendly; they stared at him rudely, and none of them looked either like home or like the Doctor"s house.
The sad thing was that he had only one way to tell which was the Doctor"s house, and that was a wrong way. He was looking for a yellow dog that scratched his head with his toenails and knocked his elbow on the board-walk when he did it. Such a dog once lay in front of the Doctor"s house. So now, as David kept going and going on, he was looking out for a yellow dog that should knock with his elbow when he scratched his head with his toenails. Once a black dog did it, but that was stupid of him; he needn"t try to fool David.
After a long, long while a great tiredness came upon the little boy, and there was such a grinding ache in him that he knew hungry-time had come. He pa.s.sed a bakeshop that breathed out a warm, steamy fragrance, and in the window there was a great pan of red-brown doughnuts dusted over with powdered sugar. As the smell was like the smell of the bakeshop near home, and as the doughnuts looked the same, David instantly plucked up courage. He hurried on, confident that he would soon be climbing up into Mother"s lap. It was some time, though, before he found a house with a white paling, and he was distrustful of the house; it had no curtains, and it scowled so. He decided to experiment first with the fence-post. Maybe the house would look more reasonable, and maybe things would feel different if he were to climb up on the fence-post. So presently, when he was perched above the gate, he closed his eyes and began kicking his heels as he did when at home.
This was another experiment; for every boy knows that you cannot hope to see any fairies or any fairy G.o.dmothers unless you take them by surprise. David, for his part, frequently gave them to understand that he wasn"t looking. He would shut his eyes tight and kick his feet to prove that he was minding his own business.
If they saw him like that, maybe they wouldn"t care if he was so close to them. After convincing them that his intentions were honorable, he would suddenly pop open his eyes to catch them at their tricks.
Once he almost saw them. The tulip bed had seemed to dance in the sunlight like a whirlpool of scarlet and yellow fire; then it stopped abruptly, but the blossoms still nodded and stirred, even after the wild dance was done. He was confident that he had come very near to seeing the fairies, but now he did not want to see them. They had done something to the house where Mother lived, and he wanted them to undo it. He would not look. They would please understand that this time he did not mean to deceive them.
"Cross my heart," he murmured very solemnly, and gave the pledge.
But it did no good. They would not undo the queer things they had done to the house. They were spiteful and mean, and not to be trusted. The house remained without trees and vines, a scowling, ugly thing. The garden had no shrubs; the seeded gra.s.s was matted down and yellow, like hay, and there were bald places where the gray ground was showing through.
They did not know, those foolish fairy folk, of the courage and the faith that may be in the heart of a little boy. They might be stubborn if they chose; they might keep him waiting, but in the end they would not abuse his patience. All would come right. Only it did take such a long, long while for it to get that way!
Hungry-time is very hard on little boys when they are waiting for things to come right, and it was so hard on David that twice he called aloud for Mother. A wooden echo, sent back from barns and sheds, dolefully repeated the last syllable of his cry. It was sad mockery, but David held doggedly to his belief that finally things would come right. His hands closed rigidly upon the sides of the fence-post, and from beneath the tight-shut eyelids slow tear-drops were squeezing out.
It was so that Dr. Redfield found him. With medicine-case in hand, the physician had come down the walk from the desolate, scowling house. As he seized the child in his arms, and as he felt the small arms of David go about his neck, the word that greeted him was "Fav-ver!"
CHAPTER VII
AS A FOUNTAIN IN THE DESERT
The magic that is in the touch of a little boy! There is nothing like it to drive out the weariness from a heart that knows it must not grow too tired. So now, when Dr. Redfield left the house where he had been, it meant much to him that there should be such a welcome awaiting him at the gate. It was a gray and worn smile, but still a smile that answered the child"s unexpected greeting, and as the wee arms went tight about the man"s neck he asked no questions; he merely said:--
"I wish I were, little boy--I wish I were your father. We would have a rest, wouldn"t we? We would take time to know each other."
As he said this there came into the Doctor"s face the same look which he had just seen in the eyes of the father and mother who were trusting to him to save their little boy. Many times other fathers and other mothers had made that mute appeal to him, and he had done what he could for them. He had done all that could be done. He was doing it to-day, and he had been doing it every day these past eight weeks that had been as twenty years to him.
For a scourge had come, and the city was trembling in the fear of it. Again Duck Town was responsible. Duck Town always was responsible. Every spring when the floods came, and Mud Creek spread itself out over the prairie, only the ducks of Duck Town were secure. Then, when the waters subsided, there came malaria, or perhaps something worse, from the musty cellars that could not be drained. The settlement lay in the bottoms, where the wretched dwellings of the poor stood huddled together as if in whispered conspiracy about some black contagion of a deadlier malice than any that had yet struck terror to the hearts of men.
Several years ago it was typhoid fever that had helped many people to move out of Duck Town. A very badly behaved disease it was. It came right up into the city and went stalking brazenly into the most stately homes along the wooded avenues and beautiful boulevards.
Next after the ravages of typhoid came diphtheria in its most malignant form, and this time--Heaven help us!--this time scarlet fever had come. And this time, as before, there were competent physicians to receive the plague; there were specialists and careful nurses with snowy ap.r.o.ns and pretty caps.
But not in Duck Town. Down there the people knew a man whom they called the Old Doctor. He was not old, not really; it was merely that he had the manner of a veteran. He browbeat them shamefully, as was perfectly proper for an old doctor; he bullied them a great deal, and scolded, and called names, and worked for them, and did not know how to sleep. That made them fear and respect him, but goodness knows what made them love him. They did, though--feared, respected, and loved the man.
Only he could not teach them to be sanitary. He knew their names, their silly Russian names and their silly Polish names; he knew their Slavic and their Bohemian names, but their language he did not know, and all the hygiene they could learn was to call for him when sickness and trouble came to them.
"Keep clean," he would say. "Drain your cellars; air out and keep clean; do try to keep clean!"
But how could they do that? Four big families in one small house do not help much to keep one small house both clean and sanitary.
Dr. Redfield knew that, and he swore at Duck Town for a vile and filthy hole. So did the people swear at Duck Town, and many of them suddenly stopped living there. For, despite the strength and courage of their champion; despite the potency of drugs; despite the sleepless nights and days spent in fighting disease, the deadly contagion grew and spread.
Dr. Redfield had gone through epidemics before, but never one like this, and now his energy was gone. For the first time in his life the impulse had come upon him to own defeat and surrender.
Other men, younger doctors than he, should take up the fight. As for him, he could not battle against such odds. He would give it up; he would go away. He would take this little boy with him and begin to live.
"I"ll do it," he said, pressing David"s face against his hollow and unshaven cheek. "I"ll do it, little boy; I will be your father."
Then David asked encouragingly:
"Is it your picture that Mother keeps in her heart?"
"No, David; not mine, I"m afraid."
This was a sad blow to the little boy. A very solemn look came into his face.
"You won"t do," he said, "unless you can get your picture into Mother"s heart."
For a second time Dr. Redfield smiled, and then he asked:
"How did you get here?"
David did not answer the question; perhaps he did not hear what was said to him. A thoughtful look had come into his face, and presently he was asking, with great earnestness in his voice:
"Why have I got curls for? Why don"t I have trouvers? Why don"t I have warts on me?"
Dr. Redfield was walking hand in hand with the little boy at his side. They were going toward the place where the horse and buggy stood waiting, and as they strode along the little boy kept falling over his chubby legs. It was hard for him to go so fast, for he was very tired, and besides, he was looking up into the man"s face.
"Warts aren"t nice for little boys," said Dr. Redfield. "You and I don"t want them on _us_, do we?"
"Don"t I, please?" said David, very earnestly. Then he wanted to know if he could not be born in Indiana. That is where Mitch Horrigan had been born, and he was always bragging about it. But the Doctor didn"t seem to be in a conversational humor. He made no reply to David"s request, and that vexed the little boy. He suddenly let go of the man"s hand and stood still. Then the Doctor stopped, too, and asked what was wrong. It was now that David closed his fist upon his thumbs and frowned savagely.
"I am not," he declared; "I am not neither a girl, am I?"
The reply of his big friend was consoling, but not satisfying, and it was some time before the man again felt the little, soft fist in his hand and saw the little boy looking wistfully up into his face.
"If only I had a few of them, Fav-ver Doctor," said David, "only just a few little warts!"
CHAPTER VIII
THE GONE-AWAY LADY