"My Dan!"
"Mrs. Lynch?" The hospital attendant spoke quickly as one would who had
a disagreeable task and must dispose of it without any delay. "Your
husband's had an accident--he's alive, but--you'd better come."
Mrs. Lynch stood very still in the centre of the room--her hand
clutching her throat as though to stifle the scream that tore it.
"My Dan--hurt!" She trembled but stood very straight. "Quick, Dale, we
must go to him. My Dan. No, no, you stay with Beryl. Oh, _hurry_!" she
implored the interne, rushing bareheaded past him down the stairway.
"_Hurry._"
For a few moments Dale stared at the half-open door. In his thirteen
years he had experienced the pinch of poverty, even hunger, the pain of
injury, but never this overwhelming fear of something, he did not know
what. Pop, his big, strong Pop--hurt! Pop, who could swing him even now,
that he measured five feet three himself, to his shoulder! Oh, no, no,
it could not be true! Someone had made a mistake. Someone had cruelly
frightened his mother. Hadn't their luck just come? Hadn't Pop been made
a boss?
"Mom-ma!" came Beryl's voice, sleepily, from the other room.
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