Part 9 (1/2)

”You mean carving,” said Christine; ”you shouldn't call it cutting. Yes, I've always thought it must be lovely work, but you would need to be awfully clever to do it.”

”I'd like to try,” said the boy. ”When my sofa's put up a little higher at the back, the way Mr. Stern lets it be now, I can use my hands quite well. You needn't be afraid I'd cut myself. Oh, it _would_ be jolly to cut out birds, and stags' heads, and things like that!”

”Stags' heads would be awfully difficult,” said Christine, ”because of the sticking-out horns--they're just like branches with lots of twigs on them. What is it you call them, Miss Lilly?”

”Antlers, isn't that what you mean?” Miss Lilly replied. ”Yes, they would be very difficult. You would have to begin with something much simpler, Ferdy.”

”I suppose I thought of stags because the Swiss boys in the story cut out stags' heads,” said Ferdy. ”I think I'd try a swallow's head. When I shut my eyes I can see one quite plain. Miss Lilly, don't you think I might try to _draw_ one? If I had a piece of paper and a nice pencil--”

Just then the door opened and his mother came in. Her face brightened up as soon as she caught sight of Ferdy's cheerful expression and heard his eager tone--it was always so now. Since the accident Mrs. Ross seemed a kind of mirror of her boy; if he was happy and comfortable her anxious face grew smooth and peaceful; if he had had a bad night, or was tired, or in pain, she looked ten years older.

And Miss Lilly, who, though still quite young herself, was very thoughtful and sensible, saw this with anxiety.

”It will never do for things to go on like this,” she said to herself, ”the strain will break down poor Mrs. Ross. And if Ferdy is never to be quite well again, or even if it takes a long time for him to recover, it will get worse and worse. We must try to find something for him to do that will take him out of himself, as people say,--something that will make him feel himself of use, poor dear, as he would like to be. I wonder if my grandfather could speak to Mrs. Ross and make her see that she should try not to be always so terribly anxious.”

For old Dr. Lilly was a very wise man. In his long life he had acquired a great deal of knowledge besides ”book-learning”; he had learnt to read human beings too.

But just now Miss Lilly's thoughtful face brightened up also as Ferdy's mother came in.

”We are talking about wood-carving,” she said. ”I am going to ask my grandfather about it. And Ferdy would like to prepare for it by drawing a little again--he was getting on nicely just before he was ill.”

”I'd like a slate,” said Ferdy, ”because I could rub out so easily; only drawings on a slate never look pretty--white on black isn't right.”

”_I_ know what,” exclaimed Christine. ”Mamma, do let us get Ferdy one of those beautiful white china slates--a big one, the same as your little one that lies on the hall table for messages.”

Ferdy's eyes sparkled with pleasure.

”That would do lovelily,” he said.

So it was arranged that Christine should drive with her mother that afternoon to the nearest town--not Whittingham, but a smaller town in another direction, called Freston, in quest of a good-sized white china slate.

CHAPTER VII

AN UNEXPECTED PIG'S HEAD

Miss Lilly and Ferdy spent a quiet hour or two together after Christine and her mother had set off. Then, as it was really a half-holiday, and Miss Lilly usually went home immediately after luncheon on half-holidays, she said good-bye to Ferdy, after seeing him comfortably settled and Flowers within hail, and started on her own way home.

She was anxious to have a talk with her grandfather and ask his advice as to the best way of helping the little boy and his mother, and keeping off the dangers to both which she saw in the future.

It was a lovely day--quite a summer day now--for it was some way on in June, and this year the weather had been remarkably beautiful--never before quite so beautiful since she had come to live in the neighbourhood, thought the young girl to herself, and she sighed a little as she pictured in her own mind what happy days she and her two little pupils might have had in the woods and fields round about Evercombe.

”Poor Ferdy,” she thought, ”I wonder if he really ever will get well again. That is, in a way, the hardest part of it all--the not knowing.

It makes it so difficult to judge how to treat him in so many little ways.”

She was not very far from her own home by this time, and looking up along the sunny road, she saw coming towards her a familiar figure.

”I do believe it is Jesse Piggot,” she said to herself. ”How curious, just when I'd been thinking about him the last day or two!”

Jesse stopped as he came up to her, and it seemed to Miss Lilly that his face grew a little red, though bashfulness was certainly not one of Jesse's weak points.