"See! General, see the wobblybubble," Delia murmured affectionately. "(Will you see that child turn his head just like a grown person? Did you ever see anything as smart as that?) Did he like the red one best? So does Delia. We'll come over here, and then you won't get the sun in your precious eyes. Do you want me to push you frontwards, so you can see me? (Watch him look at me—he knows what I mean just as well, the rascal!) Just wait till we get across, and I will. Look out, Miss Honey! Take hold of your cousin's hand and run across together, now, like good girls."
Miss Honey made an obedient snatch at Caroline's apron strings, and darted forward with a long roll of her skates. The road was clear for a block. Delia, with a quick glance to left and right, lowered the perambulator to the road-level and forged ahead. Caroline, nose in air, studied the nearest policeman curiously.
"Look out, there! Look out!"
A man's voice like a pistol shot crashed behind them. Caroline heard quick steps and a woman's scream, looked up at the huge, blood-red bulk of an automobile that swooped around the corner and dashed forward. But Miss Honey's hand was clutching her apron string, and Miss Honey's weight as she fell, tangled in the skates, dragged her down. Caroline, toppling, caught in one dizzy backward glance a vision of a face in the automobile staring down on her, white as chalk, under a black moustache and staring goggles, and another face, Delia's, white too, with eyes more strained and terrible than the goggles themselves. One second that look swept her and Miss Honey, and then, shifting, fell upon the General strapped securely into his carriage. Even as Caroline caught her breath, he flew by her like an arrow, his blue eyes round with surprise under a whirl of white parasol, the wicker body of the perambulator swaying and lurching. With that breath still in her nostrils, she was pushed violently against Miss Honey, who was dragged over her from the other side by a large hairy hand. A sharp blow from her boot heel struck Caroline's cheek, and she screamed with the pain; but her cry was lost in the louder one that echoed around her as the dust from the red monster blew in her eyes and shut out Delia's figure, flat on the ground, one arm over her face as the car rushed by.
"My God! She's down!" That was the man.
"Take his number!" a shrill voice pierced the growing confusion.
Caroline, crying with pain, was forced to her feet and stumbled along, one apron string twisted fast in Miss Honey's hand. Instantly they were surrounded by a crowd of nurses, and Miss Honey, dazed and obedient, was shoved and pulled from one to another.
"Here, get out o' this—don't let the children see anything! Let's get home."
"No, wait a minute. Let's see if she's alive. Have they got the ambulance?"
"Look out, there, Miss Dorothy, you just stop by me, or you'll be run over, too!"
"See! She's moving her head! Maybe she's not—"
Sobbing with excitement, Caroline wrenched herself free from the tangle of nurses and carriages, and pushed her way through the crowd. Against the curb, puffing and grinding, stood the great red engine; on the front seat a tall policeman sat, one woman in the back leaned over another, limp against the high cushions, and fanned her with the stiff vizor of her leather cap.
"It's all right, dear, it's all right," she repeated monotonously, with set lips, "the doctor's coming. It wasn't Pullton's fault. It's all right."
Caroline wriggled between two policemen, and made for a striped blue and white skirt that lay motionless on the ground. Across the white apron ran a broad dirty smudge.
Caroline ran forward.
"Delia! Delia!" she gulped. "Is she—is she dead?"
A little man with eyeglasses looked up from where he knelt beside the blue and white skirt.
"I don't believe so, my dear," he said briskly; "is this your nurse? See, she's opening her eyes, now—speak to her gently."
As he shifted a leather-covered flask from one hand to the other, Caroline saw a strange face with drawn purplish lids when she had always known two merry gray eyes, and tight thin lips she could not believe Delia's. The head moved a little from side to side, the lips parted slightly. A nervous fear seized her and she turned to run away; but she remembered suddenly how kind Delia had been to her; how that very morning—it seemed so long now—Delia had helped her with her stubby braids of hair, and chided Miss Honey for laughing at her ignorance of the customs of the park. She gathered her courage together and crouched down by the silent, terrifying figure.
"Hel—hello, Delia!" she began jerkily, wincing as the eyes opened and stared stupidly at the ring of anxious faces. "How do you f-feel, Delia?"
"Lean down," said the little man softly, "she wants to say something."
Caroline leaned lower.
"General," Delia muttered. "Where's General?"
The little man frowned.
"Do you know what she means?" he asked.
Caroline patted her bruised cheek.
"Of course I do," she said shortly. "That's the baby. Oh," as she remembered, "where is the General?"
"Here—here's the baby," called some one. "Push over that carriage," and a woman breathing heavily, crowded through the ring with the general, pink and placid, under his parasol.
"Lift him out," said the little man, and as the woman fumbled at the strap, he picked the baby out neatly, and held him down by the girl on the ground.
"Here's your baby, Delia," he said, with a kind roughness in his voice. "Safe and sound—not a scratch! Can you sit up and take him?"
And then, while the standing crowd craned their necks and even the steady procession moving in the way the police kept clear for them, paused a moment to stare, while the little doctor held his breath and the ambulance came clanging up the street, Delia sat up as straight as the mounted policeman beside her and held out her arms.
"General, oh, General!" she cried, and buried her face in his fat warm neck.
The men coughed, the women's faces twisted, but the little doctor watched her intently.
"Move your leg," he said sharply. "Now the other. Hurt you? Not at all?"
He turned to the young man in a white jacket, who had jumped from the back of the ambulance.
"I thought so," he said. "Though it didn't seem possible. I saw the thing go over her. Right over her apron—never touched her. Half an inch more—"
"Please, is Miss—the other little girl—is she—"
This was Delia's old voice, and Caroline smiled happily at her.
"She's all right, Delia—here she is!"
Miss Honey limped across on one roller-skate, pale, but conscious of her dramatic value, and the crowd drew a long breath of relief.
"You are a very brave girl," said the doctor, helping Delia to her feet and tucking the General, who alternately growled and cooed at his clothespin, into the perambulator. "You have undoubtedly saved the lives of all three of these children, and their parents will appreciate it, you may be sure. The way you sent that baby wagon flying across the street … ! Well, any time you're out of a job, just come to me, that's all. Dr. Gibbs, West Forty-ninth. Can you walk now? How far do you have to go?"
The crowd had melted like smoke. Only the most curious and the idlest lingered and watched the hysteria of the woman in the automobile, who clutched her companion, weeping and laughing. The chauffeur sat stolid, but Caroline's keen round eyes saw that he shook, from the waist down, like a man in a chill.
"Yes, sir, I'm all right. It's not so very far." But Delia leaned on the handle she pushed, and the chug-chug