The latter insisted that Erica should take at least one brisk walk each day, and of course there was school in the mornings, which could not be given up even for the duties of a nurse. Formerly, Erica had often gone home for early dinner with one of the girls in her class, when the morning session was over—Molly Macy, over on Pearl Street, or perhaps pretty Sara Anne Gardener, who fulfilled all Aunt Charity’s requirements for being a “genteel little lady,” yet managed to be a pleasant enough companion for a few hours “when nothing more exciting offered”—as naughty Erica used to explain to the twins. But since Tommy’s accident Erica had refused all these invitations, and hurried home to retail a carefully-remembered account of the morning’s events to his envious ears. Tommy felt that, as he had been so unfairly deprived of his exciting sea adventure, it was decidedly hard that he must fall behind his class in school, as well. Erica offered to ask the teacher to assign him some home work, which she could bring back with her each day, but Tommy was not the student Lis had been, and the idea of studying alone, without anyone to explain problems and help him over hard places, did not appeal to him, and the idea was abandoned. Another factor which served to make both the boy and girl more rebellious against the indoor confinement was that that fall was a particularly fine and sunshiny one on Nantucket. The autumn colors blazed splendidly on the commons; seas and skies were a thrilling and cloudless blue, and the crisp air caused the blood to race faster, and stored up a daily-renewed fund of unspent energy that made a shut-in existence torture to the two active young people. After the first three weeks, Tommy was allowed to be up and dressed and to go about the house, and even for a few stumping blocks along Orange Street on his new crutches. But that seemed, somehow, only an aggravation to a boy who wanted to run, play ball, tramp the commons, and take up his familiar every-day life along its usual lines. At length, however, what Tommy called bitterly his “term in prison” drew to an end, as most things, both pleasant and unpleasant, have a way of doing. And his final release from the hated crutches coincided with the near approach of Christmas, always a specially festive time on Nantucket. To be sure, this year Christmas could not be quite like all the other happy Christmases in the two Folger households without Lis—Lis who would be having his Christmas at sea, more than two-thirds of the distance to Canton.