"You might get a chair, Joel, for your friend, and another for yourself,"
suggested Mrs. Sterling.
"I will--I will," cried Joel, well pleased to have something to do, and
dragging up the first one he could find. "I'm going to sit on the
carpet"--suiting the action to the words.
"Well, you see--" Mrs. Sterling, without more ado, began at once on her
plan. Polly was by this time back on her cricket, very much relieved to
find that it wasn't so very dreadful after all to have Jack there, since
Mrs. Sterling seemed to like it. "There's nothing helps a boy who is to be
shut up in the house for a long time, quite so much as to have the other
boys who can go out to play, think of him, and plan for his comfort. Isn't
that so?" Mrs. Sterling looked at her little audience keenly.
"Yes," said two of them. Jack was so scared at finding himself where he had
never supposed he could be--in the stately brownstone mansion--that he
fixed his eyes on the carpet, not daring to move; as for speech, it was
quite beyond him.
"Well, now that Lawrence Keep has gotten hurt, I think it will be a very
good plan to have a Comfort committee to look out for him."
"What can we do for him?" cried Joel, very much excited, and jumping up
from the carpet.
"Joel, do sit down," said Polly, quite ashamed, and pulling him by the
jacket.
Joel very unwillingly slid back to his place on the carpet, and fastened
his black eyes on Mrs.
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