Sahwah had never dreamed how many friends she had until this misfortune overcame her.  Boys and girls, as well as old people and little children, horrified at the calamity, came by the dozen to offer cheer and comfort.  Her room was filled to overflowing with flowers.  Even “old Fuzzytop,” whom Sahwah had tormented nearly to death, came to offer his sympathy and present a potted tulip.  Stiff and precise Miss Muggins came to say how she missed her from the Latin class.  Aunt Phoebe forgave all the jokes she had made at her expense and sent over a crocheted dressing jacket made of fleecy wool.

“Don’t feel so badly, Nyoda dear,” she said one day as Nyoda sat beside her in the depths of despair.  The usual jolly teacher had now no cheery word to offer.  The prospect of the gay dancing Sahwah on crutches for the remainder of her life was an appalling tragedy.  “I can act out ’The Little Tin Soldier’ quite realistically—­then,” went on Sahwah, her mind already at work to find the humor of the situation.  But Nyoda sat staring miserably at the flowers on the dresser.

“Telegram for Miss Brewster,” said the nurse, appearing in the doorway.

“A telegram for me?” asked Sahwah curiously, stretching out her hand for the envelope.  She tore it open eagerly and read, “Don’t operate until I come.  Dr. Hoffman.”  “He’s coming!” cried Sahwah.  “Dr. Hoffman is coming!  He said if I ever broke a bone again he would come and set it!  Poor Doctor, how disappointed he’ll be when he finds he can’t ’set it’!”

Dr. Hoffman arrived the next day.

“Vell, vell, Missis Sahvah,” he said anxiously as he saw her lying so ominously still on the bed, “you haf not been trying to push somevon across de top of Lake Erie, haf you?” Sahwah smiled faintly.  A ray of sunlight seemed to have entered the room with the doctor, also a gust of wind.  He had thrown his hat right into a bouquet of flowers and his hair stood on end and his tie was askew with the haste he had made in getting to the hospital from the train.  “Now about this hip, yes?” he said in a businesslike tone.  Without any ceremony he brushed the nurse aside and unwrapped the bandages.  “Ach so,” he said, feeling of the joint with a practised hand, “you did a good job, Missis Sahvah.  You make out of your bone a splinter.  But vot is dis I hear about operating?” he suddenly exclaimed.  “De very idea!  Don’t you let dem amputate your leg off!  Such fool doctors!  It’s a vonder dey did not cut your head off to cure de bump!” His voice rose to a regular roar.  Dr. Lord, coming in at that moment, stopped in astonishment at the sight of this strange doctor standing over his patient.  “For vy did you want to amputate her leg off?” shouted Dr. Hoffman at him, dancing up and down in front of him and shaking his finger under his nose.  “It is no more diseased dan yours is.  And you call yourself a surgeon doctor!  Bah!  You go out and play in de sunshine and let me take care of dis hip.”