The Little Colonel's Chum: Mary Ware by Annie Fellows Johnston

All the rest of the way to Lone-Rock, Mary's waking moments were spent in anticipating her arrival and planning diversions for the days to follow. Now that she was so near, she could hardly wait to see the family. The seven months that she had been away seemed seven years, judging by her changed outlook on life. She felt that she had gone away a mere child, and that she was coming back, years old and wiser. She wondered if they would notice any difference in her.

That Mrs. Ware did, was evident from their moment of greeting. Never before had she broken down and sobbed on Mary's shoulder as she did now. Always she had been the comforter and Mary the one to be consoled, but for a few moments their positions were reversed. Conscious that her coming had lifted a burden from her mother's shoulders, the burden of enduring her anxiety alone, she tiptoed into Jack's room, ready to begin playing the Jester at once with some merry speech which she was sure would bring a smile.

But he was lying asleep, and the jest died on her lips as she stood and gazed at him. She had expected him to look ill, but his face, white and drawn with great dark shadows under his closed eyes, was so much ghastlier than she had pictured, that it was a shock to find him so. She stole out of the room again to the sunny little back porch, as sick at heart as if she had seen him lying in his coffin. He was no more like the strong jolly big brother she had left, than the silent shadow of him. She was thankful that her first sight of him had been while he was asleep. Otherwise she must have betrayed her surprise and distress.

Out on the porch she heard from Norman how it had happened. Jack had seen the danger that threatened two of the workmen, and had sprung forward with a warning cry in time to push them out of the way, but had been caught himself by the falling timbers. The miners had always liked Jack, Norman told her. He could do anything with them. And now they would get down and crawl for him if it would do any good.

From her mother and the nurse Mary heard about the operation that had been made to relieve the pressure on the spinal cord. It seemed successful as far as it went. They could not hope to do more than to make it possible for him to sit up in a wheeled chair. The injury had been of such a peculiar character that they were fortunate to accomplish even that much. It would be several weeks before he could attempt it. Jack did not know yet how seriously he had been injured. They were afraid to tell him until he was stronger. The Company was paying all the expenses of his illness, and there was an accident insurance.

At first Mary insisted on sending away Huldah, the faithful woman who had been the maid of all work in her absence, protesting that "a penny saved was a penny earned," and that she herself was amply able to do the work, and that she could economize even if she couldn't bring in any money to the family treasury. But she was soon persuaded of the wisdom of keeping her. The nurse was to leave as soon as Jack was able to sit up, and Mary would have her hands full then. He would need constant attendance at first, the nurse told her, and since he could never take any exercise, only daily massage would keep up his strength.

"I shall begin teaching you how to give it just as soon as he rallies a little more," the nurse promised, "You will have to be both hands and feet for him for many a week to come, poor boy, and feet always. It is good that you are so strong and untiring yourself."

For awhile Mary went about feeling like a visitor, since there was little for her to do either in kitchen or sick-room. Jack had not yet reached the stage when he needed amusement. He seemed glad that she was home, and his eyes followed her wistfully about the room, but he did not attempt to talk much. Sometimes the emptiness of the hours palled on her till she felt that she could not endure it. She wrote long letters to Joyce and Betty and all the school-girls with whom she wanted to keep up a correspondence. She mended everything she could find that needed mending, and she spent many hours telling her mother all that had happened in her absence. But for once in her life her usual resources failed her.

The little mining camp of Lone-Rock was high up in the hills, so that April there was not like the Aprils she had known at the Wigwam. There were still patches of snow under the pine trees above the camp. But the stir of spring was in the air, and every afternoon, while Mrs. Ware was resting, Mary slipped away for a long walk. Sometimes she would scramble up the hill-side to the great over-hanging rock which gave the place its name, and sit looking down at the tiny village below. It was just a cluster of miners' shacks, most of them inhabited by Mexicans. There were the Company's stores and the post-office, and away at the farther end of the one street were the houses of the few American families who had found their way to Lone-Rock, either on account of the mines or the healthful climate of the pine-covered hills. She could distinguish the roof of their own cottage among them, and the chimney of the little, unpainted school-house.

She wondered what the outcome of all their troubles was to be. She couldn't go on in this aimless way, day after day. She must find something to do that would pay her a salary, and it must be something that she could do at home, where she would be needed sorely as soon as the nurse left. Then she would go over and over the same little round. She might teach. She knew that she could pass the examination for a license, but the school was already supplied with a competent teacher, of many years' experience, whom the trustees would undoubtedly prefer to a seventeen year old girl just fresh from school herself.