“It isn’t all right!  Get me a little stick, quick, Kentie!  No, that fork’ll do.  Hand it here.  This bleeding’s got to stop.”

It seemed odd that it should be Jot—­little, wild, scatter-brained Jot—­ who should take the lead in that calm, determined way.  What had come to the boy?  With pale face and set teeth he quietly bound the handkerchief tightly above the wrist, and, inserting the fork handle in the knot, twisted it about.  The bleeding lessened—­stopped.

“There!  Now, if I keep a good grip on it—­oh, I say, Kentie, wasn’t I afraid I couldn’t work it!” he said, breathing hard.

“I don’t see how you did work it!  I don’t see how you ever thought of it, Jot Eddy!”

“Well, I did.  I read how it was done, up in the consultery.  Father may laugh, but I’m going to be a doctor!”

Kent’s face was full of new-born respect.  He suddenly remembered that it was Jot who had set “Rover’s broken leg and nursed the little sick calf that father set such store by.

“I guess father won’t laugh.”  Kent said soberly.  Jot was sitting on the edge of the lounge holding the fork in a firm grasp.  Old Tilly opened his eyes and nodded approvingly.

“That’s what I tried to do myself with the handkerchief—­bind it tight.  It wasn’t very bad at first, but I jerked it or something.  I didn’t want you fellows’ good time spoiled.”

“That’s just like you!” burst out Kent.  “You never tell when you get hurt, for fear other folks’ll be bothered.”

The little woman crept back into the kitchen and went quietly about her work.

The doctor soon came, and in a brief time the artery was taken up and the hand deftly bandaged.

“Which of you fellows made that tourniquet with the fork?” the doctor asked brusquely.

Kent pointed proudly to Jot.

“Oh, it was you, was it?  Well, you did a mighty good thing for your brother there.  He’d have lost plenty of blood before I got here if you hadn’t.”

The whole of that day and the next night the boys remained at “Jim’s.”  The doctor had positively objected to Old Tilly’s going on without a day’s quiet.

And the little woman—­the little woman would not hear of anything else but their staying!  She had been out to the barn with Jim and seen the blackened corner.  After that she hovered over the three boys like a hen over her chickens.

“For—­to think, Jim!—­it was saving our home he got hurt!” she cried.

The boys talked things over together, and Kent and Jot were for turning about and going straight home.  But not so Old Tilly.

“I guess!  No, sir; we’ll go right ahead and have our holiday out.  It’s great fun cruising round like this!”

“But your hand, Old Tilly—­the doctor said—­”

“To keep it quiet.  He didn’t say to sit down in a rocking-chair and sing it to sleep.  I guess if I can’t ride a wheel with one hand, my name isn’t Nathan Eddy!”