Can't I go and get the
charlotte russe for you now?"

"No, Phyllie," he exclaimed, grasping with his strong little fingers
my hand that lay on his pillow. "I wants smallpox now worser than I do
charlocks. Then Tony can come and let me tie bandages around his leg
while you go git the rookster and maybe some nice cake and oranges and
candy. No; Dumpie bringed me candy. You git more rags to tie up folks
with. I want to fix Doug's head good 'fore he goes to bed. But read
the smallpoxes right away. Begin where they throws up."

Roxanne got the book while I drew a chair by the bed and sat down to
it, with gratitude drying the tears in my heart, for being forced into
forgetting my pride and coming back to them again. Roxanne sat by me
and held my left hand until we got to the worst part of the smallpox,
and then she got pale around the mouth and went out of the room.

"Read the sickest part again, Phyllie, and then turn and read the
medicine for it," he had just demanded when she fled.

And for the rest of the afternoon I sat by him and went through all
the different stages of smallpox until, feeling each one acutely as I
did, it is a wonder I was not pock-marked. When he fell asleep at last
he was holding fast to one of my hands for fear I would get away with
the precious book.

When I could slip his fingers from mine, I tried to steal tiptoe
through the hall so as not to wake Roxanne, who was lying asleep, I
hoped, on the sofa in the hall, but she opened her great, troubled,
dark eyes and saw me before I got to the door.

"Oh, Phyllis," she said and held out her arms to me. Somehow it seems
to me I have learned very quickly how to take a person I love in my
arms without awkwardness--that is for a girl who never had anybody to
take before--and I sat down and snuggled Roxanne in a manner
comfortable to us both. "Do you think it is possible that Lovey is
going to be--be blind?" she asked me in a small voice that could
hardly dare utter the horrible words.

"I came in such a hurry when Mr. Douglass Byrd called me that I didn't
quite understand what Dr. Hughes said or found," I answered.

"When he took the bandages off, Lovey didn't seem to see at all, but
the lids are still so swollen that he is not sure they are closed. I
don't believe he knows what to do, Phyllis, and that is what scares
me. But is there any great thing a blind man can do except be a
musician? Lovey can't sing much."

I verily believe that Roxanne B