"Eh?"
"As though anybody"s blood could help poor Johnny."
"Ah! but that"s just it, Nellie. Somebody"s blood _would_ help poor little Johnny. A pint or so of somebody"s healthy, red blood----"
"How horrid!" cried the girl, trying to jump off the chair; but her father"s big hand held her.
"Wait. Don"t be a ridiculous Miss Nancy!" he said, with a chuckle.
"You are as much a surgeon"s daughter as a doctor"s daughter, I hope."
"I"m proud that you heal folk of diseases, Daddy Doctor," she said, laughing faintly. "But you talk now just like a butcher."
"No. The transfusion of blood is one of the most wonderful and blessed discoveries of recent years. Perhaps not a discovery; but the proper way to do it is a recent discovery. And that is what we want to try on little Johnny at the hospital."
"Oh, Daddy!" gasped Nellie, at last seeing that he was in earnest.
"Johnny"s condition is such that he needs good, red corpuscles pumping through his veins, and without a proper amount or a proper quality of blood, he cannot live. The nourishment he can take is insufficient to make this blood. What he must have is now in the possession of some other person. We must find that person very quickly--or not at all."
"Oh, Daddy Doctor!" she whispered. "_I_ could never do a thing like that!"
"I should say not," responded her father, quickly. "Don"t make this a personal matter, Kitten. You need every ounce of blood you"ve got for yourself. You have been perilously near the anaemic state yourself in times past. This athletic business and the resultant hearty appet.i.te you maintain has been the salvation of you, Nellie girl.
"Ah! we need a robust, healthy young person who would be willing to give a quant.i.ty of blood and not miss it. And I venture to say it"s healthy blood that gives her that color, despite the fact that you Miss Namby-pambies consider it "coa.r.s.e" and "horrid" to have a red face."
"Hester!" exclaimed Nellie.
The doctor nodded, then fell into silence again.
It was the next afternoon that they proposed taking little Johnny Doyle to the hospital. The good doctor was at the widow"s waiting for the ambulance when Hester Grimes came in. The widow was wailing as though her heart were broken; for with people of this degree of intelligence, to take a patient to the hospital is equal to signing his death warrant.
"Ochone! Ochone! I"ll never see me little Johnny runnin" around the flure again," she said to Hester. "He"s goin" jest like his poor feyther."
"What nonsense you"re talking, Mrs. Doyle!" cried Hester, cheerfully.
"He"ll come back to you as chipper as a sparrow. Won"t he, Dr. Agnew?"
"So I tell her--if G.o.d wills," added the physician in a lower tone.
Hester glanced at him sharply and then walked to the front room window where Dr. Agnew sat.
"What is it he needs, Doctor?" she asked, in a low voice. "His mother"s always talking so wild I cannot make head nor tail of it. She says you want to put new blood in him."
"That is it exactly," said Dr. Agnew, his eyes twinkling. "A pint of blood such as your veins carry in such abundance might save Johnny"s life."
"Do you mean that, Doctor?"
"Yes, Miss Hester."
"Then he can have it," returned the girl, quietly. "You can take it now, for all I care."
The doctor jumped up and walked back and forth across the room. Then he saw Hester stripping up her sleeve.
"No, no," he said. "It isn"t as easy as all that. And I"m not sure I"d be doing right to let you do it----"
"I guess you"re not _my_ conscience, Dr. Agnew," said Hester, in her usual brusque way.
"No; but I have a conscience of my own," said the doctor, grimly.
"This isn"t a thing to be done in a minute, or in a corner, young lady. It includes one of the very nicest of surgical operations. It will keep you out of school for some time. It will keep you at the hospital. It will, indeed, keep you in bed longer than you care to stay, perhaps."
"Is it dangerous?"
"To you? No. Not in any appreciable degree. You are a full-blooded girl. You can spare much more than Johnny needs----"
"Then let it be done," said Hester, firmly.
"We"ll have to see what your mother and father say."
"You leave that to me," said Hester. "I know how to manage them."
Dr. Agnew looked at her for a moment with his brow wrinkled and his lips pursed up. "I"m not sure whether, if you were my daughter, I should be most proud of you, or afraid for you," he said.
She only looked puzzled by his speech. "What do you want me to do?"
she asked, finally.
"Come here to the light," the doctor said, rummaging in his kit for a tiny instrument. He held her thumb firmly. "It will only be a needle p.r.i.c.k."
"Go ahead," said Hester.
He shot the needle into the ball of her thumb and drew out a drop or two of blood in the gla.s.s bulb of the syringe.
"We"ll just find out what _this_ tells about you in the laboratory,"
said the doctor. "I"m much mistaken if it doesn"t tell a good story, Hester Grimes. Then I"ll come and see your father and mother this evening."
"You needn"t bother if you"re going to be busy," observed Hester, coolly. "They will give their permission. When will you want me at the hospital?"
"You will sleep there to-night under the care of one of our very nicest nurses--Miss Parraday," said the doctor, smiling again. "And our little boy here--G.o.d willing--shall have a chance for life."
CHAPTER XXII
WHAT MR. BILLSON COULD TELL
The champion basketball team of Central High was holding its own, and even gaining a point or two now and then in the trophy series; but it seemed impossible for the hard-working girls to change their standing in the schedule of the teams. They remained Number 3.
They could beat West High and Lumberport High School teams every time they played with them; but it was a hard struggle for Laura and her mates to break even with East High or Centerport, and the Keyport girls almost always downed them.