"Just a peek then, don't make a noise." Already the living room had a sick room aspect. The light was lowered and the table was littered with bandages and bottles. Lydia crept up to the couch and stood looking down at the gaunt, quiet figure. John opened his eyes and smiled faintly. "Making you lots of trouble, young Lydia." "Oh, no!" exclaimed Lydia. "Just get well, we don't mind the trouble." "I've got to get well, so's you and I can travel," whispered Levine. "Good night, dear." Lydia swallowed a sob. "Good night," she said. At first, Amos planned to have Lydia stay out of school to help, but Levine grew so feverishly anxious when he heard of this that the idea was quickly given up and Ma Norton and a neighbor farther up the road arranged to spend the days turn about, helping Lizzie. As soon as the shooting was known, there was a deluge of offers of help. All the organizations to which Levine belonged as well as his numerous acquaintances were prodigal in their offers of every kind of assistance. But John fretfully refused. He would have no nurse but Lizzie, share no roof but Amos'. "You're the only folks I got," he told Amos again and again. The shooting was a seven days' wonder, but no clue was found as to the identity of the would-be assassin. Charlie Jackson had spent the evening with Kent. As the monotony of Levine's convalescence came on, gossip and conjecture lost interest in him. John himself would not speak of the shooting. It was after Christmas before John was able to sit up in Amos' arm chair and once more take a serious interest in the world about him. Lydia, coming home from school, would find Adam howling with joy at the gate and John, pale and weak but fully dressed, watching for her from his arm chair by the window. The two had many long talks, in the early winter dusk before Lydia started her preparations for supper. One of these particularly, the child never forgot. "Everybody acted queer about Charlie Jackson, at first," said Lydia, "but now you're getting well, they're all just as crazy about him as ever." "He'll kill some one in a football scrimmage yet," was John's comment. "No, the boys say he never loses his temper. The rest of them do. I wish girls played football. I bet I'd make a good quarterback." John laughed weakly but delightedly. "You must weigh fully a hundred pounds! Why, honey, they'd trample a hundred pounds to death!" "They would not!" Lydia's voice was indignant. "And just feel my muscles. I get 'em from swimming." John ran his hand over the proffered shoulders and arm. "My goodness," he said in astonishment. "Those muscles are like tiny steel springs. Well, what else would you like to be besides quarterback, Lydia?" "When I was a little girl I was crazy to be an African explorer. And I'd still like to be, only I know that's not sensible. Adam, for Pete's sake get off my feet."