"That means that you want me to take that old, new tonic of yours."
"Yes, just that," said the Doctor, emphatically; "and now, as you don't appear to care to hear about it, I 'm going to make a long call and tell you its entire history."
"Have you brought it with you?" asked Hazel, somewhat mystified.
"No, I can't carry around with me in a cab five children, a hundred acres of pine woods, a whole mountain-top, and a few Jersey cows."
"What _do_ you mean? You _are_ joking."
Then the physician clasped the thin hand a little more closely and told her of the country plan.
At first, Hazel failed to comprehend it. She gazed at the speaker with large, serious eyes, as if she half-feared he had taken leave of his senses.
"Did papa know it this morning?" was her first question.
"Yes, my dear."
"Then that is why he kissed me the way he did," she said thoughtfully.
"But," her lip quivered, "I sha'n't have him to kiss me up there, and--and--oh, dear!" A wail went up from the canopied bed that made the Doctor turn sick at heart, and even the nurse hurried away into the dressing-room.
Somehow Doctor Heath could not exhort Hazel, as he had her father, to use common-sense. He preferred to use diplomacy.
"You see, Hazel, a year won't be so very long, and it will give your hair time to grow; and perhaps you would not mind wearing a cap for a time up there, while if you were here you certainly would not care about going to dancing-school or parties in that rig; now would you?"
Hazel sniffed and looked for her handkerchief. As she failed to find it, the Doctor applied his own huge square of linen to the dripping, reddened eyes, and tenderly stroked the smooth-shaven head.
Hazel had her vanities like all girls, and her long dark braids had been one of them. After the fever, she had been shorn of what scanty locks had been left to her, and many a time she had wondered what the girls would say when they saw her. After all, the new plan might be endured, for the sake of the hair and her looks.
She sniffed again, and this time a good many tears were drawn up into her nose. The Doctor, taking no notice of the subsiding flood, proceeded,--
"My patients always look so comical when the fuzz is coming out. It's like chicken-down all over the head--"
"Fuzz!" exclaimed Hazel, with a dismayed, wide-eyed look; "must I have fuzz for hair?"
"Why, of course, for about five months," was the Doctor's matter-of-fact reply. "Then," he continued, apparently unheeding the look of relief that crept over Hazel's face, "you are apt to have the hair come out curly."
"Oh!"
"Yes, and it really grows very fast--that is," he said, resorting to wile, "if any one is strong and well; but if the general health is not good, why--hem!--the hair is n't apt to grow!"
"Goodness! I don't want to be bald all my life!"
"No, I thought not, and for that very reason it did seem the best thing for you to get into the country where you can get well and strong as fast as ever you can."
"Shall I have to eat my breakfast and dinner alone up there?" was her next question.
Doctor Heath laughed. "What! With all those five children! You will never want for company, I can assure you of that. And now I 'll be off; as it's Saint Valentine's Day, which I had forgotten, I 'll wager I have five valentines from those very children waiting for me at home."
"Will you show them to me, if you have?"
"To be sure I will. Now sit up for half a day, and get yourself strong enough to let me take you up there by the middle of March."
"Oh, are you going to take me? What fun! Are they friends of yours?"
she added timidly.
"Every one," said the Doctor, emphatically. He turned at the door.
"You have n't said yet whether you will honor me with your company up there."
"I suppose I must," she said, with something between a sigh and a laugh.
"But I don't know what Gabrielle will do; she 'll be so homesick."
"Gabrielle!" cried the Doctor, in a voice loud with amazement; "you don't think you are going to take Gabrielle with you, do you?"
Before Hazel had time to recover from her astonishment, Gabrielle, hearing her name called so loudly, came tripping into the room.
"Oui, oui, monsieur le docteur;" and Doctor Heath beat a hasty retreat to avoid further misunderstandings.
In the afternoon, Hazel received a box by messenger, with, "Please return by bearer," on the wrapper. On opening it, she found the Doctor's valentines with the following sentiments appropriately attached.
I
By Rose-pose made, by March adorned, 'T is not a Heart that one should scorn: For use each day, the whole year through, Where find a Valentine so true?
II
Cherry Blossom made this fudge (Buddie made the box).
Eat it soon, or you will judge, She made it all of rocks.
III
Baby May has made this cookie; Mother baked it--but, by hookey!
I can't find another rhyme To match with this your valentine.
Your loving Valentines,
ROSE, MARCH, "BUDD AND CHERRY," MAY BLOSSOM.
(We're one.) MOUNT HUNGER, February 14, 1896.
V
TRANSPLANTED