She bit her lip and silently nodded. "Look at her feet, will you?" he breathed. She looked at him instead, then suddenly her eyes filled with a mist like that clouding his. "_Think they'll ever walk?_" he questioned. "I don't know," she said softly, "but it looks as if God has given us the chance to make them if it's possible." "Well say what's my share?" he said. "Just anything you see that you think will help." "If I be more careful not to dirty so many clothes, will it help?" he asked. "It would leave me that much more time and strength to give to her," she said. "Will all I can save you in any way be helping her that much?" he persisted. "Surely!" she said. "Soon as he's out of sight, I'm going to begin on her. But don't let them hear!" Junior nodded. He sat down on the bank watching as if fascinated the feet trying to splash in the water. Mickey could feel the effort of the small body. "You take her now," he said to Peter. Then he threw off his shoes and stockings, turned up his knee breeches and stepped into the water, where he helped the feet to kick and splash. He rubbed them and at last picked up handfuls of fine sand and lightly massaged with it until he brought a pink glow. "That's the stuff," indorsed Peter. "Look at that! You're pulling the blood down." "Where's the blood?" asked Peaches. Peter explained the circulatory system and why all the years of lying, with no movement, had made her so helpless. He told her why scarce and wrong food had not made good blood to push down and strengthen her feet so they would walk. He told her the friction of the sand-rubbing would pull it down, while the sun, water, and earth would help. Peaches with wide eyes listened, her breath coming faster and faster, until suddenly she leaned forward and cried: "Rub, Mickey! Rub 'til the blood flies! Rub 'em hot as hell!" "Well, Miss Chicken!" he cried in despair. Peaches buried her shamed face on Peter's breast. He screened her with a big hand. "Now never you mind! Never you mind!" he repeated. "Everybody turn a deaf ear! That was a slip! Nobody heard it! You mean Little Butterfly White, 'rub hard.' Say rub hard and that will fix it!" "Mickey," she said in a faint voice so subdued and contrite as to be ridiculous, "Mickey-lovest, won't you please to rub hard! Rub jus' as hard!" Mickey suddenly bent to kiss the bony little foot he was chafing. "Yes darling, I'll rub 'til it a-most bleeds," he said. When the feet were glowing with alternate sand-rubbing and splashing in cold water, Peter looked at his wife. "I think that's the ticket!" he said. "Nancy, don't you? That pulls down the blood with rubbing, and drives it back with cold water, and pulls it down, to be pushed back again--ain't that helping the heart get in its work? Now if we strengthen her with right food, and make lots of pure blood to run in these little blue canals on her temples, and hands and feet, ain't we gaining ground? Ain't we making headway?"