"If--it will rest your face any--to look scared--by all means--do so!
I've lost control of the machine!" called the Senior Surgeon
sardonically across the roar of the wind.
The phrase excited the White Linen Nurse but it did not remotely
frighten her. She was not in the habit of seeing the Senior Surgeon lose
control of any situation. Merely intoxicated with speed, delirious with
ozone, she snatched up the Little Girl close, to her breast.
"We're flying!" she cried. "We're dropping from a parachute! We're--!"
Swoopingly like a sled striking glare, level ice the great car swerved
from the bottom of the hill into a soft rolling meadow. Instantly from
every conceivable direction, like foes in ambush, trees, stumps, rocks
reared up in threatening defiance.
Tighter and tighter the White Linen Nurse crushed the Little Girl to her
breast. Louder and louder she called in the Little Girl's ear.
_"Scream!"_ she shouted. _"There might be a bump! Scream louder than a
bump! Scream! Scream! Scream!"_
In that first over-whelming, nerve-numbing, heart-crunching terror of
his whole life as the great car tilted up against a stone,--plowed down
into the mushy edge of a marsh,--and skidded completely round,
_crash-bang--_ into a tree, it was the last sound that the Senior
Surgeon heard,--the sound of a woman and child screeching their lungs
out in diabolical exultancy!
CHAPTER V
When the White Linen Nurse found anything again she found herself lying
perfectly flat on her back in a reasonably comfortable nest of grass and
leaves. Staring inquisitively up into the sky she thought she noticed a
slight black and blue discoloration towards the west, but more than
that, much to her relief, the firmament did not seem to be seriously
injured. The earth, she feared had not escaped so easily. Even way off
somewhere near the tip of her fingers the ground was as sore--as
sore--as could be--under her touch. Impulsively to her dizzy eyes the
hot tears started, to think that now, tired as she was, she should have
to jump right up in another minute or two and attend to the poor earth.
Fortunately for any really strenuous emergency that might arise there
seemed to be nothing about her own body that hurt at all except a queer,
persistent little pain in her cheek. Not until the Little Crippled
Girl's dirt-smouched face intervened between her own staring eyes and
the sky did she realize that the pain in her cheek was a pinch.
"Wake up! Wake up!" scolded the Little Crippled Girl shrilly.
"Naughty--Pink and White Nursie! I wanted to hear the bump! You screamed
so loud I couldn't hear the bump!"
With excessive caution the White Linen Nurse struggled up at last to a
sitting posture, and gazed perplexedly around her.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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