At her first look she had thought the child dead; now, as she drew back from him, and caught her self-control with a quivering breath, and wrung her hands together in desperate effort to hold back a scream, she found it in her heart to wish he were.  His little face was black from a great bruise that spread from temple to chin, his mouth cut and swollen, his eyes half shut.  His body was doubled where it lay, a great bubble of blood moved with his breath.  He breathed lightly and faintly, with an occasional deep gasp that invariably brought the long, heart-sickening moan.  They had taken off part of his clothes, his shoes and stockings, but he still wore his Holland suit, and the dark-blue woolen coat had only been partly removed.

Rachael, ashen-faced, rose from her knees, and faced Mary and Millie.  With bitter tears the story was told.  He had been playing, as usual, in the barn, and Mary had been swinging him.  Not high, nothing like as high as Jimmie went.  And Millie came out to say that their dinner was ready, and all of a sudden he called out that he could swing without holding on, and put both his hands up in the air.  And then Mary saw him fall, the board of the swing falling, too, and striking him as he fell, and his face dashing against the old mill-wheel that stood by the door.  And he had not spoken since.

His arm had hung down loose-like, as Mary carried him in, and Millie had run for the doctor.  But Doctor Peet wouldn’t be back until seven, and the girls had dared do no more than wash off his face a little and try to make him comfortable.  “I wish the Lord had called me before the day came,” said Mary, “me, that would have died for him—­for any of you!”

“I know that, Mary,” Rachael said.  “It would have happened as easily with me.  We all know what you have been to the boys, Mary.  But you mustn’t cry so hard.  I need you.  I am going to drive him into town.”

“Oh, my God, in this storm?” exclaimed Millie.

“There’s nothing else to do,” Rachael said.  “He may die on the way, but his mother will do what she can.  I couldn’t have Doctor Peet, kind as he is.  Doctor Gregory—­his father—­will know.  It’s nearly seven now.  We must start as fast as we can.  You’ll have to pin something all about the back seat, Mary, and line it with comforters.  We’ll put his mattress on the seat—­you’ll make it snug, won’t you?—­and you’ll sit on the floor there, and steady him all you can, for I’ll have to drive.  We ought to be there by midnight, even in the storm.”

“I’ll fix it,” Mary said, with one great sob, and immediately, to Rachael’s great relief, she was her practical self.

“And I want some coffee, Millie,” she said, “strong; I’m not hungry, but if you have something ready, I’ll eat what I can.  Did Ruddy come up and get the car to-day, for oil and gas, and so on?”

“He did,” said Millie, eager to be helpful.

“That’s a blessing.”  Rachael turned to look at the little figure on the bed.  Her heart contracted with a freezing spasm of terror whenever her eyes even moved in that direction.