CHAPTER VAT THE HOSPITAL
Bunny and Sue were so fond of playing and had so many things to do, and their chums came into the yard and they all had such good times playing steamboat again, that the little boy and girl did not think much more about Mr. Pott and his missing son and treasure. In fact, Bunny and Sue did not again remember about Mr. Pott until one day when they happened to be out under one of the apple trees on which the fruit was still green, for this was early summer.
Then, as Bunny saw some of the fruit which had been blown by the wind down on the ground, a sudden idea came to him.
“Oh, Sue!” he cried. “I know what we can do!”
“What?” asked the little girl, always ready to follow the lead of her brother.
“We can go to the hospital!” announced Bunny.
“Why do we want to go to the hospital?” asked Sue. “You aren’t sick and I don’t need a doctor.”
“We can go to the hospital to see Mr. Pott,” went on Bunny. “Always, when anybody is sick, people go to the hospital to see them—I mean well people, and we’re well. We can take things to the hospital for Mr. Pott.”
“What can we take him?” asked Sue, falling in with the idea.
“Apples,” announced Bunny. “Always they take fruit to folks that are sick in the hospital.”
“Yes, and flowers, too,” said Sue. “Once Sadie West’s mother was sick in the hospital and Sadie took her flowers.”
“Sure, we can take flowers, too,” agreed Bunny. “There are flowers growing over there,” and he pointed to a distant meadow gay with dandelions and daisies. “You pick a lot of flowers, Sue, and I’ll get some of these apples and we’ll take them to Mr. Pott in the hospital. In a basket,” he added. “You haveto take stuff to people in a hospital in a basket. I’ll get a basket.”
“And I’ll pick the flowers,” agreed Sue. “Oh, this’ll be lots of fun, won’t it, Bunny?”
“Lots of fun,” agreed the little boy. “Mr. Pott’ll be glad to get the apples and the flowers.”
Sue crawled through the fence to go to the meadow to pick a bouquet of daisies and dandelions while Bunny ran back to the house to get a basket. He met Bunker Blue who had been sent to the house by Mr. Brown on an errand.
“Hello, Bunker!” called Bunny to the big, red-haired youth.
“Hello,” answered Bunker. “Going fishing, Bunny?” he asked when he saw the basket which the little boy had found in the woodshed. It was a basket used to bring chips into the house for starting the fire.
“No, I’m not going fishing,” gravely answered Bunny, as he started back to the apple tree.
“Where are you going then?” Bunker Blue wanted to know.
“To the hospital,” was the answer.
“Ha! ha!” laughed the fish boy. “You aren’t sick! What are you going to the hospital for?” As Bunny kept on without answering, Bunker said to himself: “I guess he was making believe as he and Sue are always doing. Going to the hospital! Ho! ho! That’s pretty good!” He did not really think Bunny meant what he had said.
But Bunny and Sue were very much in earnest. The little boy reached the apple tree and, looking over in the meadow, saw his sister gathering the flowers.
“Pick a nice bouquet,” he called to her.
“I will,” she answered. “I found some buttercups, too.”
“That’s good,” said Bunny. “Buttercups are good for sick folks in hospitals. I’ll put all the apples I can find in the basket.”
The apples on the ground were mostly those that were wormy, which was the reason they had fallen from the tree so early. And looking at some of this fruit Bunny decided it was not very nice.
“But there are nice apples up on the tree,”he said to himself. “I’m going to climb up and pick some.”
The apple tree was a low one, and to as active a boy as was Bunny Brown it was not at all hard to climb. So up he scrambled, leaving his basket on the ground.
Pretty soon Sue, having picked as many dandelions, buttercups and daisies as her hands would hold, crawled back under the fence. She looked beneath the apple tree for Bunny, but did not see him.
“Bunny! Bunny! Where are you?” she called. “I see your basket but I don’t see you!”
Just then a good, green apple fell at Sue’s feet. By good is meant that the apple was not wormy, though it was not ripe, either. As Sue saw and heard the apple fall she looked up, saying:
“Oh, it nearly hit me!”
She saw the branches and leaves rustling and then her brother’s voice called:
“I’m up here, Sue. I’m picking better apples for Mr. Pott. Those on the ground are wormy.”
“Oh, I’m glad you’re up there,” Sue said. “I thought maybe you’d run home. Anyway, there’s a cow over where I picked the flowers. Maybe she’ll hook me.”
“Cows don’t hook people,” announced Bunny, as he picked some apples and put them in his pocket, now and then losing his hold on one so that it fell to the ground. “Only bulls hook people,” said the little fellow. “Cows don’t.”
“Well, anyhow, she’s shaking her horns at me,” replied Sue. “Maybe she doesn’t like it that I picked flowers in her meadow.”
“Oh, I guess she doesn’t care,” stated Bunny. “Look out now, I’m coming down.”
Sue stood out of the way and Bunny scrambled from the tree. He had plenty of green apples now, and with those picked off the ground, using only the best of them, and with Sue’s flowers, the basket was now quite filled.
“We’ll go to the hospital now,” said Bunny, as he and Sue stuck the daisies, buttercups and dandelions in among the apples. “Mr. Pott will be glad to see us.”
“Yes, I guess he will,” agreed Sue.
There was only one hospital in Bellemere, and the children knew where it was, as it was not far from their house. So they walked along toward it, turning from the orchard out into a side street, which did not take them past their home. If they had gone past carrying that queer looking basket of fruit and flowers and if Mrs. Brown had seen them, she would very likely not have let them go.
As it was, Bunny and Sue tramped along the streets, and more than one man and woman turned to look at the two pretty children for they made a beautiful picture, carrying the basket between them.
When Bunny and Sue made up their minds to do anything, they went right ahead with it. They were not bashful or afraid. Just now their minds were so filled with doing what they thought was a kindness to Mr. Pott that there was not any room for thoughts of being afraid.
So they marched boldly up the front steps of the hospital and into the reception room, where a pleasant-faced nurse, wearing a white uniform and a white cap, met them.
“How do you do, children,” she greeted them.
“Hello,” answered Bunny Brown.
“We have come—we’ve come to your hospital,” added Sue.
“Oh, have you?” asked the nurse, smiling. “Well, we’re glad to see you. But you don’t look as if you needed hospital treatment; either of you.”
“Oh, no’m, we aren’t sick!” Bunny made haste to say. “But Mr. Pott’s sick, and we brought him something to eat.”
“The apples are to eat,” quickly said Sue, lest a mistake be made and the flowers served as a meal. “We brought the apples for Mr. Pott to eat, and he can smell the flowers. But if he gets them too near his nose they’ll make his nose yellow, the buttercups will. My nose is yellow—look!” and she held her nose up to the nurse.
“Oh, yes, I see your nose is a little yellow,” and the nurse laughed quietly. “How did it happen?”
“I smelled a buttercup too close,” said Sue. “Mr. Pott’s nose will be yellow, too.”
“Yes, if he smells a buttercup it will,” agreed the nurse.
“Where is he?” asked Bunny. “If you’ll tell us, if you please,” he added, remembering his manners, “we’ll take these apples up to him, and the flowers, too.”
“The flowers ought to be put in water,” put in Sue.
“Yes, I suppose they ought,” agreed the nurse. “If you will give your basket to me I will see that the flowers are put in water and placed in Mr. Pott’s room. He’ll like them, I’m sure.”
“He’ll like the apples, too,” said Bunny.
To this the nurse made no answer. But as she looked at the green fruit in the basket she could not help laughing, though she took care not to let Bunny or Sue see her mirth. The children were taken in charge by another nurse who entered just then and to whom the first nurse explained matters.
“They want to see Mr. Pott?” said this nurse, who was called Miss Mantin.
“I don’t know who they are, but they brought some fruit and flowers. I’ll take careof the basket,” said the first nurse, glancing at the second nurse and picking up one of the green apples.
“Yes, put the fruit away for him. He couldn’t eat it just now, for he had some lunch only a little while ago,” Miss Mantin said to Bunny and Sue. “But the flowers can go right up to his bedside. He will like to look at them. And now, whose children are you? Is Mr. Pott your father?”
“Oh, no!” exclaimed Sue.
“I’m Bunny Brown and this is my sister Sue,” explained the little boy.
“Oh, yes, now I remember. It was from your house that Mr. Pott was brought here,” said the second nurse, Miss Mantin, who was in charge of the hospital. “Well, I think you can see Mr. Pott for just a few moments. He is very ill and not altogether right in his head. Sometimes he wanders in his talk. But he may know you when he sees you. Come along.”
“Shouldn’t we give him the apples and flowers?” asked Sue.
“Miss Wilson, the nurse you met first, willattend to that,” said the manager, and she smiled a little.
“Has Mr. Pott’s son Harry come to see him yet?” asked Bunny, as he and his sister followed the manager along the clean halls.
“No one has been to see him yet except the doctor,” was the answer. “I didn’t know he had a son Harry.”
“He has. He was lost in a wreck, and so was the treasure lost,” explained Bunny.
“Oh, that’s too bad,” remarked Miss Mantin, the manager.
She led the children upstairs to a clean, white room, where, in a clean, white bed lay the man who had been tossed off his horse and hurt. Another nurse was coming out of the room as the children and Miss Mantin approached.
“Is Mr. Pott able to see any one, Miss Wentworth?” asked Miss Mantin.
“I think so,” was the answer. “He has been talking to me and seems some better.”
Bunny and Sue were led into the room. Mr. Pott looked at them, but he did not seem to remember them.
“Where did you come from?” he asked them.
“Why, don’t you know us?” asked Sue. “You fell off your horse in our yard.”
“Oh, yes,” said the man in a weak voice. “I know something happened to my horse. But you aren’t my son Harry, are you?” he asked Bunny. “No, you can’t be my son—he’s much bigger than you!” went on Mr. Pott before Sue’s brother had a chance to answer. “My son was on the schoonerMary Bellwhen she foundered. Harry was sick and I guess he didn’t get off. He wasn’t in my boat, but maybe another boat picked him up. Poor Harry! He’s gone, and so is my treasure. Harry was lost in the West Indies.”
Bunny and Sue started and looked surprised as they heard the name of these islands. Miss Mantin saw this and asked:
“Do you know this man’s son, children?”
“Oh, no, ma’am,” said Bunny. “But we’re going to the West Indies on a steamboat soon.”
“Maybe we could find his son!” added Sue.“Oh, Bunny, wouldn’t it be wonderful if we could?”
“Yes,” agreed Bunny, “very wonderful!”
Then a change came over Mr. Pott. He tossed restlessly on the bed and cried out:
“Avast! Belay there! Drop the anchor! We’re sinking! Where are you, Harry? Save the treasure!”
“He is out of his mind again,” said the nurse softly. “You had better go home, children.”