It was a bright day, for a marvel. Sunlight came through the barred window behind Jimmy's bed, and brought into dazzling radiance the pink bathrobe, and Harmony's eyes, and fat Nurse Elisabet's white apron. It lay on the bedspread in great squares, outlined by the shadows of the window bars. Now and then the sentry, pacing outside, would advance as far as Jimmy's window, and a warlike silhouette of military cap and the upper end of a carbine would appear on the coverlet. These events, however, were rare, the sentry preferring the shelter of the gateway and the odor of boiling onions from the lodge just inside.
The Dozent retired to his room for the second breakfast; the nurses went about the business of the ward; Dr. Anna Gates drew a hairpin from her hair and made a great show of opening the many times opened envelope.
“The letter at last!” she said. “Shall I read it or will you?”
“You read it. It takes me so long. I'll read it all day, after you are gone. I always do.”
Anna Gates read the letter. She read aloud poor Peter's first halting lines, when he was struggling against sleep and cold. They were mainly an apology for the delay. Then forgetting discomfort in the joy of creation, he became more comfortable. The account of the near-accident was wonderfully graphic; the description of the chamois was fervid, if not accurate. But consternation came with the end.
The letter apparently finished, there was yet another sheet. The doctor read on.
“For Heaven's sake,” said Peter's frantic postscript, “find out how much a medium-sized chamois--”
Dr. Gates stopped “--ought to weigh,” was the rest of it, “and fix it right in the letter. The kid's too smart to be fooled and I never saw a chamois outside of a drug store. They have horns, haven't they?”
“That was one of my papers slipped in by mistake,” remarked Dr. Gates, with dignity, and flashing a wild appeal for help to Harmony.
“How did one of your papers get in when it was sealed?”
“I think,” observed Harmony, leaning forward, “that little boys must not ask too many questions, especially when Christmas is only six weeks off.”
“I know! He wants to send me the horns the way he sent me the boar's tusks.”
For Peter, having in one letter unwisely recorded the slaughter of a boar, had been obliged to ransack Vienna for a pair of tusks. The tusks had not been so difficult. But horns!