and she saw the golden head bending over the disheveled form in the mud, as the child repeated again and again, "She's not dead! She can't be dead! I won't let her be dead!" Swiftly Edith knelt beside the pair and sought to lift the older child to carry her into the house. But at her first touch, the brown eyes unclosed, and a roguish smile broke over the white face, as Peace looked up at the frightened figures above her and giggled hysterically, "I've often wondered what it would feel like to fly. Do you s'pose it makes the birds sick and dizzy every time they make a swoop?"
"Peace!" gasped Edith, "are you hurt?"
"No, only things look kind of tipsy 'round here, and my breath has got St. Vitas Dance." Slowly she stretched out her arms and legs that they might see that none of her limbs were broken; but when she attempted to sit up, her lips went white and she fell back on the trampled grass with a stifled groan.
"You are hurt, Peace Greenfield," declared anxious Allee, hovering over her like a mother bird over her young.
"There's a place in my back," whispered the injured girl faintly. "I guess maybe one of my ribs is cracked."
At this moment the distracted President and wild-eyed Gail pushed through the knot of children huddled about the fallen heroine, and demanded huskily, "How is she? Not dead? Thank God! Any bones broken?"
"Nope, Grandpa," smiled Peace cheerfully. "I just got a cricket in my back, so it hurts a little when I wiggle; but I got Johnny's ball, too, didn't I?"
"I'm afraid there is something wrong," whispered Edith Smiley, with a worried look in her eyes, as she made way for the President. "She can't move without groaning."
The stalwart man stooped over the outstretched figure and gathered it in his arms, but as he lifted her from the ground she screamed in agony and fainted quite away. Thus they bore her home—the President with the still form on his bosom, Gail bearing the muddy red stocking cap, Cherry and Allee bringing up the rear, while a hushed, scared-faced throng of playmates followed at some distance.
The next morning the corner seat by the window in Miss Phelps' room was vacant for the first time that year, and the teacher looked up in surprise when no familiar voice answered, "Present," when she called Peace Greenfield's name.
"She fell off the roof of Smiley's house," volunteered one scholar.
"And broke her back," supplemented another.
"What!" shrieked the horrified teacher, with a strange, sickening fear clutching at her heart.
The door opened, and the school principal entered the room, looking worn and distraught.
"Miss Lisk," cried the teacher, turning eagerly to her superior, "the children tell me that Peace Greenfield has fallen from some roof and broken her back."
"O, it's not as bad as that," responded the older woman promptly. "She has had a nasty fall and is—hurt. How badly, the doctor is unable yet to say, but we hope she will soon be with us again." Lowering her voice so none but the teacher could hear, she added, "The physician is afraid that her spine is injured."
"Oh!" cried Miss Phelps, too shocked for further words.
"It is too bad such a thing should happen to her," continued Miss Lisk sadly. "She is such a lovable child, the life of her home."
Had anyone paid such a tribute to the lively Peace on the previous day, her teacher would merely have raised her eyebrows doubtfully; but with the memory of that flushed, joyous face still so vividly before her, and with the sound of the eager, childish prattle still ringing in her ears, she nodded her head in assent, and turned back to the day's duties with a heaviness of heart that was overwhelming. With that restless, active figure gone from its accustomed corner, the sun seemed to have set in mid-day and left the whole world in darkness.
CHAPTER II
THE SCRAP-BOOK BRIGADE
When Peace awoke to her surroundings again, she was lying in the gorgeously draped bed of the Flag Room with old Dr. Coates bending over her, and she startled the worthy gentleman by asking in sprightly tones, "Well, Doctor, how are you? It's been a long time since you've been to call on me, isn't it? Do you think I have cracked a rib?"
"No, little girl," he answered soberly, but his wrinkled old face brightened visibly at the sound of her cheery voice. "I think you have put a kink in your back."
"Will it be all right soon?"
"We hope so, curly pate."
"By tomorrow?"
"O, dear, no! Not for—days." He could not bring himself to tell her that it might be weeks before he could even determine how badly the little back was hurt.
"Mercy!" she wailed in consternation, for bed held no charms for that active body. "And must I stay in bed all that while?"
"My dear child," he answered gravely, "do you realize that you are the luckiest girl in seven counties tonight?"
"How?" she asked curiously, forgetting her lament in her wonder at his words.
"It's a miracle that you were not killed outright."
"Well, Johnny dared me."
"And you couldn't pass up a dare?"
She shook her head.
"Well, now my girlie must take her medicine."
Peace looked startled. "I didn't 'xpect to fall," she murmured, and two tears glistened in her big brown eyes.
The doctor relented. "There, there, little one," he comforted, "don't feel badly. We'll soon have you up and about—perhaps," he added under his breath.
So he left her smiling and cheerful, but his own heart was heavy as he descended the stairs after the long examination was ended, a pall of anxiety hung over the whole household when the door closed behind his broad back. Peace crippled perhaps for life, perhaps never to walk without crutches again! It was too dreadful to be true. Peace—their gay little butterfly! Peace, whose feet seemed like wings! They never walked, but danced along with the lightness of a fairy, tripping, flitting, never still. What a calamity!
"But Dr. Coates says it is too soon to know for certain yet," Hope reminded them, trying to find a ray of encouragement to cheer the anxious household, and they seized upon that straw with desperation, gradually taking heart once more, and trying to shake off the dreadful fear that Peace would never romp or dance about the house again.
And it really seemed as if the white-haired physician's fears were groundless; for after the first few days when the slightest touch made the little sufferer whimper with pain, she seemed to get better. The soreness wore away, the drawn lines around the mouth smoothed themselves out, the rosy color came back to the round cheeks and the sound of the well-known laughter floated from room to
