There was a week when the house was kept very still, and the south
room very cool and shadowy, and Chip did not much care who it was
that ministered to him--only that the hands of the Little Doctor were
always soft and soothing on his head and he wished she would keep
them there always, when he was himself enough to wish anything
coherently.






CHAPTER XII.
"The Last Stand."



To use a trite expression and say that Chip "fought his way back
to health" would be simply stating a fact and stating it mildly.
He went about it much as he would go about gentling a refractory
broncho, and with nearly the same results.

His ankle, however, simply could not be hurried or bluffed into
premature soundness, and the Little Doctor was at her wits' end
to keep Chip from fretting himself back into fever, once he was
safely pulled out of it. She made haste to explain the bit of
overheard conversation, which he harped on more than he dreamed,
when his head went light in that first week, and so established
a more friendly feeling between them.