ed
chin; her hair, the color of over-ripe corn, hung fluffy on her thin
shoulders, her flower-like eyes, with something motherly in them
already, were the same hue as her pale-blue, almost clean, overall. She
had her smaller, chubbier sister by the hand, and, having delivered her
message, stood still, gazing up at Tod, as one might at God. Tod dropped
his hoe.

"Biddy come with me; Susie go and tell Mrs. Freeland, or Miss Sheila."

He took the frail little hand of the elder Tryst and ran. They ran at
the child's pace, the one so very massive, the other such a whiff of
flesh and blood.

"Did you come at once, Biddy?"

"Yes, sir."

"Where was he taken?"

"In the kitchen--just as I was cookin' breakfast."

"Ah! Is it a bad one?"

"Yes, sir, awful bad--he's all foamy."

"What did you do for it?"

"Susie and me turned him over, and Billy's seein' he don't get his
tongue down his throat--like what you told us, and we ran to you. Susie
was frightened, he hollered so."

Past the three cottages, whence a woman at a window stared in amaze to
see that queer couple running, past the pond where the ducks, whiter
than ever in the brightening sunlight, dived and circled carelessly,
into the Tryst kitchen. There on the brick floor lay the distressful
man, already struggling back out of epilepsy, while his little
frightened son sat manfully beside him.

"Towels, and hot water, Biddy!"

With extraordinary calm rapidity the small creature brought what might
have been two towels, a basin, and the kettle; and in silence she and
Tod steeped his forehead.

"Eyes look better, Biddy?"

"He don't look so funny now, sir."

Picking up that form, almost as big as his own, Tod carried it up
impossibly narrow stairs and laid it on a dishevelled bed.

"Phew! Open the window, Biddy."

The small creature opened what there was of window.

"Now, go down and heat two bricks and wrap them in something, and bring
them up."

Tryst's boots and socks removed, Tod rubbed the large, warped feet.
While doing this he whistled, and the little boy crept up-stairs and
squatted in the doorway, to watch and listen. The morning air overcame
with its sweetness the natural odor of that small room, and a bird or
two went flirting past. The small creature came back with the bricks,
wrapped in petticoats of her own, and, placing them against the soles
of her father's feet, she stood gazing at Tod, for all the world like a
little mother dog with pu