“Lawrence Raeburn you are a trump!” said Amy, flying round to her brother and giving him a hug.  “We’ll propose it at the first meeting of the Ten, and it’ll be carried by acclamation.”

“Now,” said Grace, rising and saying good-afternoon to my mother, with a courtesy to the rest of us, “I’m going straight home to break ground there and prepare my mother for great events.”

Walking over the fields in great haste, for when one has news to communicate, one’s feet are wings, Grace was arrested by a groan as of somebody in great pain.  She looked about cautiously, but it was several minutes before she found, lying under the hedge, a boy with a broken pitcher at his side.  He was deadly pale, and great drops of sweat rolled down his face.

“Oh, you poor boy!  What is the matter?” she cried, bending over him in great concern.

“I’ve broke mother’s best china pitcher,” said the lad, in a despairing voice.

“Poof!” replied Grace.  “Pitchers can be mended or replaced.  What else is wrong?  You’re not groaning over a broken pitcher, surely!”

“You would, if it came over in the Mayflower, and was all of your ancestors’ you had left to show that you could be a Colonial Dame.  Ug-gh!” The boy tried to sit up, gasped and fell back in a dead faint.

“Goodness!” said Grace; “he’s broken his leg as well as his pitcher.  Colonial Dames!  What nonsense!  Well, I can’t leave him here.”

She had her smelling salts in her satchel, but before she could find them, Grace’s satchel being an omnium gatherum of a remarkably miscellaneous character, the lad came to.  A fainting person will usually regain consciousness soon if laid out flat, with the head a little lower than the body.  I’ve seen people persist in keeping a fainting friend in a sitting position, which is very stupid and quite cruel.

“I am Doctor Wainwright’s daughter,” said Grace, “and I see my father’s gig turning the corner of the road.  You shall have help directly.  Papa will know what to do, so lie still where you are.”

The lad obeyed, there plainly being nothing else to be done.  In a second Doctor Wainwright, at Grace’s flag of distress, a white handkerchief waving from the top of her parasol, came toward her at the mare’s fastest pace.

“Hello!” he said.  “Here’s Archie Vanderhoven in a pickle.”

“As usual, doctor,” said Archie, faintly.  “I’ve broken mother’s last pitcher.”

“And your leg, I see,” observed the doctor, with professional directness.  “Well, my boy, you must be taken home.  Grace, drive home for me, and tell the boys to bring a cot here as soon as possible.  Meanwhile I’ll set Archie’s leg.  It’s only a simple fracture.”  And the doctor from his black bag, brought out bandages and instruments.  No army surgeon on the field of battle was quicker and gentler than Doctor Wainwright, whose skill was renowned all over our country-side.