Nevertheless there still remained quite a margin of leisure, and it was during this lonely interval when every one else was training for the coming games that he would stray off by himself and visit little Tim McGrew. Between the two a peculiar friendship sprang up. On Van's part it arose from forlornness mingled with a half formulated belief that he must do something to express his thankfulness that he himself had escaped from the fate that had overtaken the child. On the small lad's side it had its root in gratitude and hero-worship. In Tim's eyes Van Blake was an all-powerful person. Was it not he who had picked him up and carried him to the hospital? And had not this same big schoolboy bought the beautiful wheel-chair that enabled one to travel about the house and yard almost as readily as if on foot? In addition to all this was it not Van who came often to the house, never forgetting to bring in his pocket some toy or picture-book? Small things they often were--these gifts that meant so much to the child--often things of very slight money value; but to the invalid whose long, tedious days of convalescence were stretches of monotony the tiny presents seemed treasures from an enchanted land. Tim was now at home in the shabby cottage on the outskirts of Colversham where he lived with his mother and four sisters. Poor as the place was it was spotlessly neat and Tim's family were spotlessly tidy too. Mrs. McGrew, who supported her household by doing washing for some of the families in the town, might have had a permanent and much more lucrative position elsewhere had it not been for leaving her five little ones; as it was, she clung to her children, struggling to meet her living expenses as best she could. It had been a sore grief to her when Tim, her only boy and the baby of the home, had become crippled. Perhaps she sensed more clearly than did the lad the full seriousness of the calamity. As for Tim, he accepted it in childish fashion, hopefully ignoring the problems of the future. To Van Blake Mrs. McGrew was all gratitude. Of all her children her boy was her favorite. "But for you, sir, little Timmie might have been left at the roadside to die," she would exclaim over and over. "We'll never forget it--never--neither I nor the children!" It was thus that Van became the hero of the McGrew household, and the warmth and genuineness of the welcome he unfailingly received there aroused in him an answering friendliness. Many a time when he saw things either new or interesting he would find himself instinctively saying: "I must tell Tim about that," or "I must take that to Tim."