the king's body-guard waited in the outer court of the palace, but the palace was only a dull, red cottage, and the court a low porch that surrounded three sides of it. as for the body-guard, they were not dressed as such great people are wont to be. one of them wore a calico dress, canvas shoes, and an untrimmed hat of soft red felt. the other, for there were but two of them, was resplendent in gray knickerbockers, and a blue flannel shirt, with white anchors worked in the corners of the sailor-shaped collar. as for the king, but a short time before' he had been only a rollicking little fellow astride of a cherry tree bough, and a blue-eyed little nan had stood holding out her apron to catch the cherries he threw down, and gazing up at him with a face full of wonder at his daring. but the old and brittle bough had suddenly given way under his weight, and reginald fairfax tumbled in a sad little heap to the ground.
quick as a flash nan sat down by his side, with her feet straight out before her, and drew the brown head into her lap, while the tears fell fast on the face that seemed so still and lifeless. her brother harry ran for the young doctor up at the hotel, as fast as his stout little legs could carry him.
all this had happened only last week, and now reginald lay on a hospital cot in his own little room in the cottage, and harry and nan were waiting on the porch till the doctor should come out and they could be admitted.
they were both very quiet, for they had not seen regie since the accident, and were awed at the thought of being soon ushered into his presence. harry kept making round holes in the gravel path with the heel of his boot; nan sat staring in abstracted fashion at a little wreath of oak leaves which she was balancing on one extended hand.
presently the doctor came out. “you can go up now,” he said, “regie expects you.” then he caught up his tennis racquet, which he had left on the porch, and hurried away, for the doctor was taking his vacation. if he had not been quite a young doctor, perhaps he would rather have forgotten for those two short weeks that there was such a thing as a patient in the world. but as matters stood he did not seem to mind in the least, that now and then he must stop whatever he was doing, and run over to see “how the little fairfax boy was coming on,” and, young as he was, he had set regie's leg as neatly and dexterously as any older and more experienced surgeon could have set it.
the children crept quietly up the stairway which landed them at reginald's door. nan paused midway in the room and looked toward regie with a puzzled frown, for the little fellow stretched out on the cot did not seem exactly like the regie she had known, tumbling around out of doors.
harry scarcely stirred a foot beyond the door-sill, and screwed his funny round mouth into a funnier pucker, a queer little habit to which he always resorted in moments of embarrassment.
“i'm very sorry for you, regie,” said nan, drawing a trifle nearer.
“it is too bad,” replied regie. “it couldn't be helped though;” a remark which he had volunteered several times, as if anxious that no one should think that carelessness had aught to do with the accident.
“we've thought of a splendid game,” said harry, feeling that he ought to say something.
“i guess the only game i'll play for a good while will be still pond, no moving,” said regie, with a poor little ghost of a smile.
“oh! no, indeed,” cried nan, eagerly, “you're to be the principal one in this game. you're to be a little king, and we are to be your body-guard.”
“what's a body-guard?” asked regie, in a tone as though he doubted the merits of everything with which he could not claim previous acquaintance.
“oh! it's a——, but we are not going to tell many people,” answered harry, glancing significantly toward a room opening-out of regie's, where some one, a stranger to him, sat knitting.
“she's only my nurse,” regie explained; “you mustn't mind her, for she'll have to be round a great deal, and you don't catch me having a body-guard unless i know just what it is.”
“it won't hurt you,” laughed nan, with her hands behind her back, and still standing in the centre of the room. harry had made so bold as to take a seat on the edge of a high-backed rocker, so very much on the edge, in fact, that it threatened to land him on the floor any moment.
“why don't you sit down, nan?” reginald asked at last.
“i can't sit down, regie, because of the crown,” and nan looked beseechingly toward harry, as if acting under orders.
“yes, you may show it now,” was harry's patronising answer; whereupon nan exultingly held up the little oak wreath before regie's wondering gaze.
“oh! is that the crown?” and regie betrayed a shade of disappointment in his tone, having a conviction that such articles ought to be made of gold, or at least of silver.
“oh! regie, don't you like it? it took me a whole day to make it,” nan exclaimed, with a perceptible quiver in her voice.
“oh yes, it's very nice, very nice indeed! only—well! it'll wither, you know.”
“i can make another then,” she said, complacently, as though that objection were easily met. “may i put it on your head?”
“certainly;” and regie bent his head forward from the pillow.
“nan stood in great awe of the apparatus of weights attached to the cot to keep regie's limb from shortening while the broken bone was knitting.
“are you sure it won't do your leg any harm?” she asked, nervously, holding the crown, poised in both hands, above his head, for she could only boast eight years, and was rather a timid little body. regie laughed outright at this, and harry shouted, “of course not, goosie!” with true brotherly disgust.
thus encouraged she dropped the crown on to regie's head.
“you look lovely in it,” she said, bringing the hand-glass from the bureau; “you can lean your head back, it won't hurt the crown.”
“it hurts me though,” said regie, settling back against the pillow, and holding the little mirror at arm's length that he might see the general effect; “it pricks.”
“i do not think a king ought to mind such a thing as a prick,” nan remarked, seriously, for she possessed a lively imagination, and, for the time being, regie was a real little king.
“perhaps not,” said regie, recalling something about “uneasy lies the head that wears a crown” (which proverb had once been set for a copy in his writing book at school), and thinking how very true it was. “but you have not told me anything about the body-guard,” he added.
“as i understand it,” said harry, who liked to use a big word when he could, “the body-guard sort of takes care of the king, and does whatever he tells 'em to do.”
“then you and nan are to do whatever i tell you,” with an accent on the “whatever.”
“yes,” said nan, with hearty seriousness. harry merely nodded his head, as if not quite willing to commit himself by an audible “yes.” he looked as though he foresaw some unpleasant possibilities in regie's “whatever.”
“if you think of anything you'd like to have,” nan farther explained, “why, harry or i will run and get it—and things like that you know.”
“my! but that'll be fun for me,” said regie.
“of course it will,” nan replied; “that's why we thought of it, because there's a great many kinds of fun you'll have to do without while you must lie so still. will it be for very long, regie?” she asked, wistfully.
“pretty long, i guess,” answered regie, with an honest little sigh.
“it was nan that made it up,” said harry, whose thoughts had a trick of following their own bent independent of other people's; “i don't know as i'm going to like it.”
“like what?” queried regie, with a puzzled frown.
“why, the being ordered about.''
“oh, i'll be easy on the body-guard,” laughed regie.
“i'm ashamed of you, harry murray, to talk like that right before poor regie!” and nan's face showed how real was her mortification.
“i don't believe kings wear their crowns to bed!” exclaimed regie, having borne the pricking of the stiff little leaves as long as he could. “this king won't, at any rate. hang it on that nail, nan, where i can reach it, and put it on whenever you seem to forget that i am the king, and you must mind me,” with a sly look toward harry. harry's threatened downfall became a reality just at that moment, and the unbalanced-rocking-chair landed him suddenly on the floor.
“i think we had better go now,” he said, picking himself up, with a furtive look in the direction of the nurse, knowing that such a mishap was rather inexcusable in a sick room.
“i should think we had,” observed nan, with a good measure of reproach in tone and accent; and after a good-bye to regie, and a friendly word or two from the nurse who had come in with regie's luncheon, the children took their departure.
down the path, across the boulevard and over to the beach they trudged, side by side, but without saying a word to each other. nan was preserving a dignified silence, which means that she wished harry to understand by her manner that she did not at all approve of his behaviour during their visit. but harry was so completely absorbed in his own thoughts as to be quite unmindful of the implied rebuke. when they reached the beach he lingered to watch the fishermen bring their boat in over the surf, leaving nan to walk the rest of the way home alone.
regie felt tired after his talk with the children, and having eaten the luncheon, soon dropped off into a sound little nap, to dream of kings and queens and all sorts of royal things, suggested, no doubt, by the oak-leaf crown on which his brown eyes were resting the last moment before the long lashes closed over them. in these brown eyes and long lashes lay the charm of regie's face, and he had reason to be very grateful to them. perhaps you wonder how this could be? well, the very next chapter will tell you.
