Pollio was better next day, and still better the day after. By the time his father came home he was feeling as well as ever, and the sad affair was almost forgotten.

But, alas! a week after the accident Pollio was seized with a very strange ailment.

It was morning. His bed-fellow, Teddy, had dressed and gone down stairs, leaving him playing with the yellow-tailed kitten; but a little while after, when Posy went into the chamber to say “Good-morning!” she found her dear brother crying.

“O Posy! I can’t get up. When I try to get up, I tumble down.”

She helped him with all the strength of her little arms, but it did no good; for no sooner was he fairly on his feet than he fell again to the floor.

Very much frightened, she ran down stairs, exclaiming,—

“My Pollio’s very sick: he can’t stand up!”

“I think that must be a mistake, dear,” said mamma, kissing her; “for I just heard him and Teddy laughing together.”

“I didn’t know he was sick,” said Teddy.

“Well, I know it,” returned Posy with trembling lips. “He’s awful sick!”

When mamma saw that the little girl was so much in earnest, she went up stairs with her, though she did not suppose for a moment that any thing really ailed Pollio.

When she saw him half dressed, and crying helplessly, she put her arm round him, and asked if his head ached.

“No’m: head doesn’t ache.”

“Is your throat sore?”

“No’m: froat isn’t sore.”

“Well, darling, where do you feel sick?”

“Not sick anywhere, mamma.”

“Are you crying because you and Teddy have quarrelled?”

“No’m: we didn’t krorrel.”

“Then tell me, my little son, what is it?”

“Can’t walk, mamma,” sobbed the poor child, plunging headlong upon the floor, and crawling upon his hands and knees.

“Fie! that’s not nice. Get up, my son: you’ll soil your clothes.”

“Can’t get up, mamma.”

“I said he couldn’t get up: my Pollio’s very sick,” repeated Posy, hoping her mother would believe her now.

“Let me see if there isn’t a pin or bit of glass in his shoe,” said Mrs. Pitcher. But when she had hunted, and found nothing, she began to be alarmed, and sent Posy to call her father. Posy went eagerly, for she wanted papa to see and pity her Pollio.

Judge Pitcher was shocked to find his little son creeping about like a baby, and sent presently for Dr. Field.

When the doctor entered the room, Pollio hid his face in his purple-bordered handkerchief, with his forehead touching the floor.

“Well, my little man, what’s this? Are you playing baby? Oh, no! I guess you are a black dog, like Beppo: let us hear you bark.”

Pollio jerked both elbows angrily. He did not like to be laughed at when he was in trouble. But, if he had only known it, the doctor pitied him very much, and was hiding two big tears under his “eye-bushes.” For he saw now that Pollio’s back had been hurt worse than he supposed. There was a sore spot on it; and, strange as it may seem, that was why he could not walk.

“Well, how do you like being a dog?” asked the doctor, scowling away another tear.

“I’m not a dog,” exclaimed Pollio, turning over on his side. “But my legs are spoiled: they won’t go.”

“How do they feel?”

“They feel like India-rubber boots,” snapped Pollio, thinking the doctor very inquisitive.

“Well, I am going to give you some medicine, and I hope in a few days they will feel as stiff as calfskin boots,” said the doctor, writing something on a slip of paper.

After he was gone, Judge Pitcher took Pollio in his lap and tried to soothe him; while the children clustered around, all talking together.

“It seems queer,” said Teddy, “that his legs won’t go, just because his back is hurt. But I suppose the bones are all hitched together somehow.”

“Wish the doctor’d unhitch ’em,” groaned Pollio. “Oh, dear! I’m tired of being hitched.”

“We hope this won’t last long, my son: you will get over it by and by, and run as fast as ever,” said his father. “Won’t you try to be patient for a little while?”

“I don’t want to be patient!” cried Pollio, swinging his arms. “I hate to awfully!”

Posy came then, and threw both her little arms about his neck, as if to say, “I’ll help you bear it, my Pollio.”

Mamma was going to help him too: you could see that by the tender smile on her face. Her heart ached for her darling boy, but she would not let him know it: she would always smile whenever she possibly could.

The first day was pretty long. If you don’t believe it, just shove yourself about on the floor for half an hour, and see how it seems.

“Oh, dear!” said Pollio, “I’d give ten cents to buy some hinges for my legs.”

“Please, darling, don’t you s’pose if you’d get on my back, I could carry you?” said Posy.

It was the first time Pollio had smiled that day; but it was such a funny speech from that mite of a girl! He would as soon have thought of leaning on a good-sized flower, say a honeysuckle.

“Why, Teddy couldn’t hardly carry me: he isn’t big enough,” said the poor boy, feeling suddenly that he was very heavy.

“Well, papa can carry you, and Nunky can carry you, and Dick.”

“Now, you stop! Do you s’pose I want to go pickapack all the time?” whined unhappy Pollio.

To comfort him, Posy took a glass of lemonade from the table, and raised it to his lips, and of course spilled it on his neck.

“Needn’t do that again, miss! Guess I can drink my own self, ’thout you helping!”

Posy was deeply grieved, for this did not sound like Pollio.

“No, I sha’n’t go pickapack, Posy Pitcher! I shall go on my hands and knees long as I live!”

Posy slid round to the arm of the sofa, dropped her head, and began to cry softly. It was hard to have him so cross; but she could have borne that: it was the idea of his never walking again that broke her heart.

“Where’s Beppo?—Beppo, come here!” called Pollio.

The dog came wagging his tail, and, seeing his master lying down and looking so sad, trotted up to him, and licked his face lovingly.

“Poor fellow! I’m awful worse. I’m going to be a doggie just like you. The doctor says so. How do you like being a dog?”

Beppo snuggled his head close to Pollio’s, and licked his cheek again. The two heads were of nearly the same color; but Beppo’s hair was curly, and Pollio’s straight. Beppo’s eyes were black, like his master’s, and had just now a wistful look.

“He wants something: I guess he wants to talk,” said Pollio.

“I guess so too,” said Posy, trying not to sob.

Pollio lay for some time stroking the dog’s nose. Did Beppo grieve about not talking as boys did about not walking? That would be sad indeed.

It was a long day and a very long week. Pollio had friends enough. Oh, no lack of those! Nunky, papa, and Dick carried him pickapack; mamma and aunt Ann read to him; Teddy was as kind as he could be; and, as for Posy, there was nothing in the world she wouldn’t have done for her Pollio. Then the little boys in town—why, they rushed in in an army! or you would have thought so if you had heard Eliza scold about the mud they brought on their shoes. Even Jimmy Cushing came with a basket of fruit, and begged forgiveness for hitting Pollio’s nose ever so long ago.

Hop-clover came, for Pollio wanted to see her. “Poh! I s’pose you think you’re lame; but look here,” said he, dropping on all-fours. “Can you beat that?”

Hop-clover humbly confessed that she couldn’t. Her lameness wasn’t much: a horse never stepped on her; she only fell down stairs when she was a baby, and she ’spected she lost out one o’ the bones. But now she could read in the Second Reader, and she didn’t care.

Mrs. Pitcher was so charmed with Hop-clover’s sweet little face and patient ways, that she gave her some of Edith’s dresses, and asked her to come twice a week and stay to tea. This made the little girl perfectly happy.

“Oh, how good your mamma is!” said she to Posy. “It’s wicked to wish you was cats and dogs, and I don’t; but I ’most wish I was your Muff or your Beppo, so I could live in this house. I like a house that has a sign to it,” added she, looking wistfully at the framed motto over the nursery-door: “God bless our home.”

Sometimes Pollio was as patient as Hop-clover, and said he was “glad he had something the rest of the family couldn’t catch.” Sometimes, too, he thought he shouldn’t live long. “When I die, I’ll ask God to let me come down and see you once, Posy.”

“Perhaps I’ll die first,” returned she.

“Well, then, I guess there’ll be a row if I can’t go up and see you,” said Pollio.

He really meant no harm; but he did say very improper things sometimes, and it troubled Posy.

When Nunky told him a story, he begged that it might be about Indians, for he liked to feel his hair stand on end. Posy could not understand that at all: there were many things about her dear brother she never would understand.

But Nunky refused to tell horrible stories, and chose only such as the children would be the better and happier for remembering. He was very kind, too, about drawing pictures on the slate for Pollio to copy; and this was a thing the little fellow greatly enjoyed.

Indeed, everybody was so kind to him, that the small boys in town rather envied Pollio. “I’d ’most be willing to creep round as he does, if my mamma’d give me such nice things to eat,” said they; which shows that they had no idea of Pollio’s trials.

When he was down stairs, he wanted to go up; and, when he was up stairs, he wanted to come down. You would feel just as he did if you couldn’t walk. Everybody was ready to carry him, and nobody complained, But Pollio found after a while that he did not need so many “horses:” he could travel on all-fours nearly as fast as Beppo or Muff.

You ought to have seen him run! How he did run away from his medicine! Why, he went so fast that his aunt Ann could not catch him. It was her business to give him his drops three times a day; but the moment she began to shake the vial he was missing. He could slip out of the room without any noise, then up stairs or down cellar,—anywhere to get away from that hateful vial and spoon.

“Pollio, this is very naughty,” said his auntie, quite out of breath. “Your little sister Alice didn’t behave like this: she took her medicine without any trouble.”

“Did she? Then what made her die?” exclaimed Pollio, slipping under a chair.

It was too hard for aunt Ann to be led such a chase; and Nunky said he would take charge of the medicine. Pollio knew then that it was all over with him, for Nunky could run like a fox. But Nunky had no idea of running. He was a man who believed that little children should be taught to obey.

“Pollio, you have made enough trouble, my boy; and from this time I expect you to swallow your medicine as soon as I have counted ‘One, two, three.’”

Pollio looked up, and saw his uncle was in earnest.

“Sha’n’t you catch me first?”

“Catch you? No, sir! you’re already caught! Open your mouth, General, ‘One, two, three!’”

Pollio swallowed, and sighed; and after that there was no more trouble about the drops.