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"Sure, she's a she!" replied the Boy. "MacPhairrson says so!" "That accounts fer it!" said Baldy. "It's a way all shes have with the Boss. Jest look at her now!" "Now for Ebenezer!" interrupted the Boss, to change the subject. "You better hand him to me, an' maybe he'll take it as an introduction." Solemnly the Boy stooped, shoving the little raccoon aside, and picked the pig up in his arms.
The doctor decided at last that there was some pressure of bone on the brain, and that operations quite beyond his skill would be required. At his suggestion a purse was made up among the mill hands and the Settlement folk, and MacPhairrson, smiling with infantile enjoyment, was packed off down river on the little tri-weekly steamer to the hospital in the city.
Then the cabin door swung wide, and in the doorway appeared MacPhairrson, leaning on his crutches, a green parrot on his shoulder, and beside his crippled feet two big white cats. MacPhairrson, the parrot, and the cats, all together stared hard at the door on the bridge, striving to make out through the meshes who the visitor might be.
In this retreat, within fifty yards of the busy mill, but fenced about by the foaming torrent and quite inaccessible except by the footbridge, MacPhairrson lived with the motley group of companions which men called his Happy Family. Happy, no doubt, they were, in spite of the strait confines of their prison, for MacPhairrson ruled them by the joint forces of authority and love.
"Boys," said he, his great voice not yet toned down to the quiet, "I say, let's divvy up the critters among us, jest us mill hands an' the Boy here, an' look out fer 'em the best we know how till MacPhairrson gits well!" He looked interrogatively at the Boy, and the Boy, proud of the importance thus attached to him, answered modestly "That's just what I was hoping you'd suggest, Mr. MacAllister.
At this moment the fox appeared from hiding behind the cabin, and sat up, with ears cocked shrewdly and head to one side, to take note of his master's return. "Lord, how Carrots has growed!" exclaimed MacPhairrson, lovingly, and called him to come. But the fox yawned in his face, got up lazily, and trotted off to the other side of the island. MacPhairrson's face fell.
Therefore, instead of going to meet his visitors, he plumped down on the bench outside his door and just waited. A moment later the quaint procession arrived. MacPhairrson found Black Angus shaking him hugely by the hand, Ebenezer, much grown up, rooting at his knees with a happy little squeal, and Ananias-and-Sapphira, as of old, clambering excitedly up his shirt-front.
When the procession approached, he forsook the doorstep, turned his fat, brown back upon the visitor, and became engrossed in gnawing a big cabbage stalk. He was afraid that if he should seem good-natured and friendly, he might be called upon to show off some of the tricks which MacPhairrson, with inexhaustible patience, had taught him.
He was not going to turn somersaults, or roll over backward, or walk like a dancing bear, for any Boy alive! This ill humour of Butters, however, attracted no notice. It was accepted by both MacPhairrson and his visitor as a thing of course. Moreover, there were matters of more moment afoot.
MacPhairrson shouted, and Stumpy, at the sound of the loud voice, went wild, trying to tear his way through the gate. When the gate opened, he had to brace himself against the frame, before he could grasp the Boy's hand, so extravagant and overwhelming were the yelping Stumpy's caresses.
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