Two or three times before midnight Frank started spasmodically, and once would have risen up in bed if Rich had not held him down; as it was, he clasped his physician convulsively around the neck with great force.

"What is the matter, Frank?"

"I thought I was falling out of the tree. I suppose I was dreaming."

In one respect Rich was favorably situated. He had but one patient, and every moment he could spare from his school he either spent at the bedside of the boy, or in studying his case by the aid of books; he availed himself of the experience of Dr. Ryan, who knew the constitution of the lad, sympathized with Rich, and, in the exercise of a noble generosity, told him he was glad he had taken charge of the case, and believed he would succeed.

The means resorted to by Rich to prevent inflammation were crowned with success; the swelling of the muscles, never excessive, soon subsided,[Pg 279] and he found the wound was healing by the first intention, which far exceeded his most sanguine hopes, as he feared some air might have entered, or some splinter of bone be lying loose in the wound that would cause suppuration.

It was time for new bone to begin to form, and consequently the shape the limb now assumed it would retain through life. Rich knew several persons in town whose limbs had been broken and set by Dr. Ryan, and he could hardly recall a single instance in which the operation had been entirely successful; nearly all walked with a hitch in their gait, many used a staff, or wore a peculiarly-shaped shoe. He also noticed that most of the persons thus partially crippled lived at a long distance from Dr. Ryan, and concluded that it arose in a good degree either from a mistaken economy on the part of the patient, anxious to save the cost of a visit, or from careless bandaging on the part of the doctor.

Excited to the highest degree by the brilliant success thus far attained, and knowledge that the boy's life was safe, he longed, O, how ardently! to make a perfect cure, and restore the leg to its original form and efficiency.

He reflected that less discretion and regard to future consequences were to be expected from a lad like Frank than from a grown person; didn't feel satisfied with the old splints, was afraid that, unless he bandaged the leg so tight as to impede[Pg 280] the circulation, the restless boy would, just at the critical period when the bone was forming, get the parts out of place.

"I know," said Rich to himself, "that I am mechanic enough to place those bones as they should be, and I'll see if I cannot contrive some way to keep them there in spite of this wide-awake youngster."

He went to bed in order to think about it, and in the morning at the breakfast table said to Mrs. Clemens,—

"Where did you get that blue clay the girl was putting on the floor yesterday to take out a grease-spot? It had no more grit than tailors'-chalk."

"Daniel got it somewhere."

"I got it down in Milliken's Gully, Mr. Richardson. You might cut it with a razor, and not dull the razor; there's not a stone or one mite of grit in it. I got it to make marbles."

Richardson procured a quantity of the clay, dried, pounded, sifted, and made it into a very thin mortar. He then took the splints from Frank's leg, placed the bones precisely as he wanted them, put the leg in a box, fastened the upper portion of his body to the bed that he could not move, and poured the clay mortar into the box till it completely enveloped the leg and foot. He then pulled the bed under the window, where the sun shone full on the clay, took hold of Frank's foot, and sat down.

[Pg 281]

"How long are you going to keep me lashed down so, Mr. Richardson?"

"Till this clay dries. And I shall hold your foot just where it is till then."

"Why, Mr. Richardson," said Mrs. Merrill, "it will take all day for that clay to dry."

"No, it won't, with the warmth of the leg on one side, and that of the sun on the other, it won't take half a day."

"But the academy bell will ring in about fifteen minutes."

"Parson Meek is going to take my place this forenoon; so you may prepare to give me some dinner, for I shall sit here till the clay hardens, if it is till to-morrow evening."

The clay was stiff, though not dry, before noon, and Frank's leg immovably fixed in the position Rich had placed it.

"Now, Frank, you have behaved so well, I am going to put you in a chair."

Rich and Mr. Merrill took Frank up, placed him in a chair, and put the leg, box and all, on two others.

"Now, my boy, you may sit at the table and eat dinner with us, if you will eat only what I prescribe; and you may thank the blue clay in Milliken's Gully for that. Blue clay, forever, Frank. Were it not for that you would have had to lie on your back twenty days or more."

After the meal was ended, Rich, with a saw,[Pg 282] cut out a portion of the clay, in order to be able to get at that part of the leg the bone had penetrated. The box was also lined with paper, that the clay might not stick to it, and put together with screws, in order that it might be taken to pieces. This was Rich's fracture box, not very elegant, and for which he never took out any patent; being made, the sides, of the cover of an old herring box; but it answered the purpose completely, fastening the limb as firmly in the box as though it grew there, and as effectually preventing any motion of the ankle or toes, by which the bones might be displaced.

When Rich went to the academy in the afternoon, he returned Frank to his bed; and the next morning he was taken up again, and, as the cure progressed, sat up more and more. He could now read, play checkers with Dan and Horace, and the time passed less tediously. He now importuned his physician to take his leg out of the box; but Rich peremptorily refused, though he allowed him a more generous diet.

When a full month had elapsed, Rich took the box apart, sawed through the coating of clay the whole length, and peeled it off, removed the bandage, washed the leg, gave it a smart rubbing, and compared it with the other. After examining the limb a long time very carefully, he said,—

"If those two legs are not as well matched as they were before, I am very much mistaken."

[Pg 283]

"Shall I be lame any, Mr. Richardson?" said Frank.

"If you are, it will be your own fault. If you are careless now, you will rue it as long as you live, for the parts are not consolidated yet, and the oblique fracture in the large bone requires a longer time to heal than the square break in the other."

Rich put on the clay again, but without the box, and in less quantity, confining it by a bandage, slung the patient's leg to his neck, and permitted him to take exercise by walking about the house on crutches, some one accompanying him; and when he permitted him to put his injured leg to the floor, it was found to be of the same length as the other.

Mr. Merrill rewarded Rich most liberally, being abundantly able, and with exp............