some of it must have crept in.
"Operation?" she managed to choke out at last.

Operation was a fairly common word in Ward C, and not an over-hopeful
one.

"It's this way, Thumbkin; and let's make a bargain of it. I think
there's a cure for that back of yours. It hasn't been tried very much;
about often enough to make it worth while for us to take a chance.
I'll be honest with you and tell you the house surgeon doesn't think it
can be done; but that's where the bargain comes in. He thinks he can
mend my trouble, and I don't; and we're both dreadfully greedy to prove
we're right. Now if you will give me my way with you I will give him
his. But you must come first."

"A hundred years is a long time to be asleep," she objected.

"Bless you, it won't be a hundred minutes."

"And does your back need it, too?"

"Not my back; my stomach. It's about the only chance for either of us,
Thumbkin."

"And you won't unless I do?"

The Old Senior Surgeon gave his head a terrific shake; then he caught
her small hands in his great, warm, comforting ones. "Think. It means
a strong back; a pair of sturdy little legs to take you anywhere; and
the whole world before you!"

"And you'll have them, too?"

He smiled convincingly.

"All right. Let's." She gave his hand a hard, trustful squeeze.

She liked to remember that squeeze. She often wondered if it might not
have helped him to do what he had to do.

Her operation was record-making in its success; and after he had seen
her well on the mend he gave himself over to the house surgeon and a
fellow-colleague, according to the bargain. He proved the house
surgeon wrong, for he never rallied. Undoubtedly he knew this would be
the way of it; for he stopped in Ward C before he went up to the
operating-room and said to her:

"I shall be sleeping longer than you did, Thumbkin; but, never fear, I
shall be waking some time, somewhere. And remember this: Never grow so
strong and well that you forget how tiresome a hospital crib can be.
Never be so happy that you grow blind to the heartaches of other
children; and never wander so far away from Saint Margaret's that you
can't come back, sometimes, and make a story for some one else."

She puzzled a good bit over this, especially the first part of it; but
when they told her the next day, she understood. Probably she grieved
for him more than had any one else; even more than the members of his
own family or profession. For