Part 14 (1/2)
Slender though she was, it became no easy matter to place her in the tonneau of the automobile. The credit of the undertaking went to Marjorie and Jerry, who exerted their young strength to the utmost for their injured friend. By this time a procession of automobiles containing the returning picnickers was drawn up along the road. The sound of excited voices from within these cars bade Marjorie lose no time.
”Will you please drive on before the others come up?” she entreated.
”They know now that something has happened. We ought not to have a crowd around. I hope your pa.s.sengers won't mind walking to the campus.”
”Not a bit of it,” a.s.sured two or three of the freshmen who had heard her remarks.
”Thank you.” Marjorie flashed the group of girls one of her beautiful, kindly smiles which none of them forgot in a hurry.
Alarmed though she was by the accident, Margaret was half resentful of Marjorie's calm manner. Still she had no choice but to do as she was requested. She inwardly wished that Leslie had had the prudence to drive moderately. This affair was likely to make trouble for them all.
”Ready?” she interrogated, turning in the driver's seat to Marjorie.
An affirmative and she started her car for the Hall. Just at the gate they met the black and white roadster. Leslie was its sole occupant now.
”h.e.l.lo!” she hailed. ”Is that you, Margaret? What was the matter back there? Do you know?” Leslie leaned far out of her car in the gathering twilight.
”Your roadster hit Miss Langly. I don't know how it happened. She is in my car. Her friends are with her. You'd better go on down and tell the rest what has happened. They have stopped back there.”
”What?” This time Leslie's pet interjection came involuntarily and with a tinge of fear. ”I saw a bunch of girls, but I was sure I didn't hit any of them. See you at the Hall.” Leslie started her car without further words.
”She has nerve!” muttered Jerry. ”She thinks she is going to slide out of this easily. Well, she can't lay this outrage to anyone else. She had no business to be exceeding the speed limit. She never sounded a horn, either. Poor Kathie! I hope she isn't badly hurt.”
”I--I--am all right, Jerry.” Katherine had heard. ”The car just brushed me; hard--enough to throw me--on my back. That's all.”
”That's all,” repeated Lucy indignantly. ”Enough, I should say. Musn't talk much, Kathie. You'll be in your room and in bed right away.”
”Glad of it. So--tired,” mumbled Katharine, and closed her eyes again.
The injured girl was carried into the Hall just as a driving rain began to descend. Miss Remson promptly telephoned for her own physician and bustled about, an efficient first aid, until he arrived.
Established temporarily on the living room davenport, Katherine braced up wonderfully under the wise little manager's treatment. To her plea that she could walk upstairs to her room, if a.s.sisted by two of her friends, Miss Remson would not listen.
”Wait until the doctor comes, my dear,” she insisted. ”He will know what's best for you.”
News of the accident having spread through the Hall, girls hurried from all parts of the house to the living room, where they were promptly headed off by Lucy, Marjorie and Jerry from intruding upon Katherine.
Thus far neither the Sans nor the four freshmen who roomed at the Hall had put in an appearance.
The arrival of Doctor Thurston, a large, kindly man of about forty, was a relief to all concerned. Very gently he lifted Katherine in his strong arms and carried her upstairs to her room.
”She has had a narrow escape,” he told her anxious friends, a little later. ”Her back is sprained. It is a wonder it was not broken. Two weeks in bed and she will be all right again. Students who drive their own cars should go slowly along the campus part of the road. There are always girls in plenty on foot. The one who ran her down must have had very poor policy not even to sound a horn.”
CHAPTER XIII.
A PAINFUL INTERVIEW.
As a result of a private conference among the Lookouts that evening, a trained nurse arrived on Sunday afternoon to look after their injured friend. Ronny, with her usual magnificent generosity, wished to take the expenses for Katherine's care and treatment upon herself. To this her chums would not hear. ”We all love Kathie,” Muriel declared. ”I think we ought to divide her expenses among us.” Lucy Warner was particularly pleased with Muriel's proposal. She had earned an extra hundred dollars that summer by doing typing in the evenings. She felt, therefore, that she held the right to offer a portion of it in the cause of her particular friend.
”It seems too bad to go on having good times with poor Kathie so sick,”
deplored Marjorie, as she and Jerry softly closed the door of the latter's room after a brief visit to her following their return from Houghton House.