The Railway Children, E. Nesbit [ebook reader below 3000 .TXT] 📗

Bobbie, with a white face; “you don’t know how funny you’re making me feel.”

“Me, too,” said Phyllis, whose face was pink.

“Cowards!” said Peter.

“I’m not,” said Bobbie. “I helped Mother with your rake-wounded foot, and so did Phil⁠—you know we did.”

“Well, then!” said Peter. “Now look here. It would be a jolly good thing for you if I were to talk to you every day for half an hour about broken bones and people’s insides, so as to get you used to it.”

A chair was moved above.

“Listen,” said Peter, “that’s the bone crunching.”

“I do wish you wouldn’t,” said Phyllis. “Bobbie doesn’t like it.”

“I’ll tell you what they do,” said Peter. I can’t think what made him so horrid. Perhaps it was because he had been so very nice and kind all the earlier part of the day, and now he had to have a change. This is called reaction. One notices it now and then in oneself. Sometimes when one has been extra good for a longer time than usual, one is suddenly attacked by a violent fit of not being good at all. “I’ll tell you what they do,” said Peter; “they strap the broken man down so that he can’t resist or interfere with their doctorish designs, and then someone holds his head, and someone holds his leg⁠—the broken one, and pulls it till the bones fit in⁠—with a crunch, mind you! Then they strap it up and⁠—let’s play at bone-setting!”

“Oh, no!” said Phyllis.

But Bobbie said suddenly: “All right⁠—let’s! I’ll be the doctor, and Phil can be the nurse. You can be the broken boner; we can get at your legs more easily, because you don’t wear petticoats.”

“I’ll get the splints and bandages,” said Peter; “you get the couch of suffering ready.”

The ropes that had tied up the boxes that had come from home were all in a wooden packing-case in the cellar. When Peter brought in a trailing tangle of them, and two boards for splints, Phyllis was excitedly giggling.

“Now, then,” he said, and lay down on the settle, groaning most grievously.

“Not so loud!” said Bobbie, beginning to wind the rope round him and the settle. “You pull, Phil.”

“Not so tight,” moaned Peter. “You’ll break my other leg.”

Bobbie worked on in silence, winding more and more rope round him.

“That’s enough,” said Peter. “I can’t move at all. Oh, my poor leg!” He groaned again.

“Sure you can’t move?” asked Bobbie, in a rather strange tone.

“Quite sure,” replied Peter. “Shall we play it’s bleeding freely or not?” he asked cheerfully.

“You can play what you like,” said Bobbie, sternly, folding her arms and looking down at him where he lay all wound round and round with cord. “Phil and I are going away. And we shan’t untie you till you promise never, never to talk to us about blood and wounds unless we say you may. Come, Phil!”

“You beast!” said Peter, writhing. “I’ll never promise, never. I’ll yell, and Mother will come.”

“Do,” said Bobbie, “and tell her why we tied you up! Come on, Phil. No, I’m not a beast, Peter. But you wouldn’t stop when we asked you and⁠—”

“Yah,” said Peter, “it wasn’t even your own idea. You got it out of Stalky!”

Bobbie and Phil, retiring in silent dignity, were met at the door by the Doctor. He came in rubbing his hands and looking pleased with himself.

“Well,” he said, “That job’s done. It’s a nice clean fracture, and it’ll go on all right, I’ve no doubt. Plucky young chap, too⁠—hullo! what’s all this?”

His eye had fallen on Peter who lay mousy-still in his bonds on the settle.

“Playing at prisoners, eh?” he said; but his eyebrows had gone up a little. Somehow he had not thought that Bobbie would be playing while in the room above someone was having a broken bone set.

“Oh, no!” said Bobbie, “not at prisoners. We were playing at setting bones. Peter’s the broken boner, and I was the doctor.”

The Doctor frowned.

“Then I must say,” he said, and he said it rather sternly, “that’s it’s a very heartless game. Haven’t you enough imagination even to faintly picture what’s been going on upstairs? That poor chap, with the drops of sweat on his forehead, and biting his lips so as not to cry out, and every touch on his leg agony and⁠—”

“You ought to be tied up,” said Phyllis; “you’re as bad as⁠—”

“Hush,” said Bobbie; “I’m sorry, but we weren’t heartless, really.”

“I was, I suppose,” said Peter, crossly. “All right, Bobbie, don’t you go on being noble and screening me, because I jolly well won’t have it. It was only that I kept on talking about blood and wounds. I wanted to train them for Red Cross Nurses. And I wouldn’t stop when they asked me.”

“Well?” said Dr. Forrest, sitting down.

“Well⁠—then I said, ‘Let’s play at setting bones.’ It was all rot. I knew Bobbie wouldn’t. I only said it to tease her. And then when she said ‘yes,’ of course I had to go through with it. And they tied me up. They got it out of Stalky. And I think it’s a beastly shame.”

He managed to writhe over and hide his face against the wooden back of the settle.

“I didn’t think that anyone would know but us,” said Bobbie, indignantly answering Peter’s unspoken reproach. “I never thought of your coming in. And hearing about blood and wounds does really make me feel most awfully funny. It was only a joke our tying him up. Let me untie you, Pete.”

“I don’t care if you never untie me,” said Peter; “and if that’s your idea of a joke⁠—”

“If I were you,” said the Doctor, though really he did not quite know what to say, “I should be untied before your Mother comes down. You don’t want to worry her just now, do you?”

“I don’t promise anything about not saying about wounds, mind,” said Peter, in very surly tones, as Bobbie and Phyllis began to untie the knots.

“I’m very sorry, Pete,” Bobbie whispered, leaning close to him as she