take in the letters
well, but I asked Roxanne, who was standing waiting to hear what the
telegram could be about, just as a friend should feel over a telegram,
to run out to the shed and get our Idol quick, and I would tell them
all about it together. He came in looking perfectly beautiful with his
coat off and a big apron on him. His eyes were just as excited as mine
felt, now that the mist had cleared, and it seemed to me even in that
moment that no other thousand dollars in the world could have brought
so much suspense and excitement as this one had.

But I knew that I might have a battle to fight in which I must win,
and I steadied my nerves and made myself feel like Father looks when
he reads important letters and begins to dictate answers in telegrams.

"Mr. Douglass Byrd," I said, perfectly coolly over my own inward
volcano, "you remember you promised me that if I could use my own
brains on a plan to get the doctor here for Lovelace Peyton's eyes,
you would let me do it?"

"Yes, I said just about that," he answered me, and he looked in my
eyes in a depending way that was so like Lovelace Peyton used to do
that again the mist came over my eyes. I am getting to have that
proper mist now instead of the choke, and I am glad, because it can be
hid better than a choke.

"Well, I found the plan and worked it for us, and I will have the
thousand dollars by night-time, and we can get the doctor from
Cincinnati by to-morrow, and have it all over before the algebra
examination on Monday," I answered.

Then, in very many less words than I have used to tell about it to
you, Louise, I told him what I had done, with Roxanne standing with
her arm across my shoulders, that trembled with excitement. To cap off
the climax of the story in proper fashion, as we are taught in the
rhetoric to do, I handed him the telegram--and I felt like the Colonel
looks when I did it. He stood for what seemed hours, with the telegram
in his hand, and something makes me suspect that he was having the
same hard time as I was having with a choke, only this was the first
time and it came very near resulting in weeping, which I had never
done up to that time.

"It is a wonderful thing for you to have done, dear," he said at last,
with a look that got down to the core of my inexperienced heart and
made it thump uncomfortably. "And if there were no other way to get
the doctor for the kiddy's eyes I would accept this loan gladly, but I
have heard i