nicely, and Nursey had an apt pupil in bandaging, plastering, and
fomenting. The boys began to call her “Dr. Giddy-gaddy,” and she
liked it so well that Mrs. Jo one day said to the Professor
“Fritz, I see what we can do for that child. She wants something to
live for even now, and will be one of the sharp, strong,
discontented women if she does not have it. Don’t let us snub her
restless little nature, but do our best to give her the work she likes,
and by and by persuade her father to let her study medicine. She
will make a capital doctor, for she has courage, strong nerves, a
tender heart, and an intense love and pity for the weak and
suffering.”
Mr. Bhaer smiled at first, but agreed to try, and gave Nan an
herb-garden, teaching her the various healing properties of the
plants she tended, and letting her try their virtues on the children in
the little illnesses they had from time to time. She learned fast,
remembered well, and showed a sense and interest most
encouraging to her Professor, who did not shut his door in her face
because she was a little woman.
She was thinking of this, as she sat in the willow that day, and
when Daisy said in her gentle way
“I love to keep house, and mean to have a nice one for Demi when
we grow up and live together.”
Nan replied with decision
“Well, I haven’t got any brother, and I don’t want any house to fuss
over. I shall have an office, with lots of bottles and drawers and
pestle things in it, and I shall drive round in a horse and chaise and
cure sick people. That will be such fun.”
“Ugh! how can you bear the bad-smelling stuff and the nasty little
powders and castor-oil and senna and hive syrup?” cried Daisy,
with a shudder.
“I shan’t have to take any, so I don’t care. Besides, they make
people well, and I like to cure folks. Didn’t my sage-tea make
Mother Bhaer’s headache go away, and my hops stop Ned’s
toothache in five hours? So now!”
“Shall you put leeches on people, and cut off legs and pull out
teeth?” asked Daisy, quaking at the thought.
“Yes, I shall do every thing; I don’t care if the people are all
smashed up, I shall mend them. My grandpa was a doctor, and I
saw him sew a great cut in a man’s cheek, and I held the sponge,
and wasn’t frightened a bit, and Grandpa said I was a brave girl.”
“How could you? I’m sorry for sick people, and I like to nurse
them, but it makes my legs shake so I have to run away. I’m not a
brave girl,” sighed Daisy.
“Well, you can be my nurse, and cuddle my patients when I have
given them the physic and cut off their legs,” said Nan, whose
practice was evidently to be of the heroic kind.
“Ship ahoy! Where are you, Nan?” called a voice from below.
“Here we are.”
“Ay, ay!” said the voice, and Emil appeared holding one hand in
the other, with his face puckered up as if in pain.
“Oh, what’s the matter?” cried Daisy, anxiously.
“A confounded splinter in my thumb. Can’t get it out. Take a pick
at it, will you, Nanny?”
“It’s in very deep, and I haven’t any needle,” said Nan, examining a
tarry thumb with interest.
“Take a pin,” said Emil, in a hurry.
“No, it’s too big and hasn’t got a sharp point.”
Here Daisy, who had dived into her pocket, presented a neat little
housewife with four needles in it.
“You are the Posy who always has what we want,” said Emil; and
Nan resolved to have a needle-book in her own pocket henceforth,
for just such cases as this were always occurring in her practice.
Daisy covered her eyes, but Nan probed and picked with a steady
hand, while Emil gave directions not down in any medical work or
record.
“Starboard now! Steady, boys, steady! Try another tack. Heave ho!
there she is!”
“Suck it,” ordered the Doctor, surveying the splinter with an