I had n't any idea how it would work , but I just took a chance . I 'll smoke his throat out again once or twice before morning , just to kill all the germs , but you 'll see he 'll be all right now . ' `` Jims went right to sleep -- real sleep , not coma , as I feared at first . Mary ` smoked him , ' as she called it , twice through the night , and at daylight his throat was perfectly clear and his temperature was almost normal . When I made sure of that I turned and looked at Mary Vance . She was sitting on the lounge laying down the law to Susan on some subject about which Susan must have known forty times as much as she did . But I did n't mind how much law she laid down or how much she bragged . She had a right to brag -- she had dared to do what I would never have dared , and had saved Jims from a horrible death . It did n't matter any more that she had once chased me through the Glen with a codfish ; it did n't matter that she had smeared goose-grease all over my dream of romance the night of the lighthouse dance ; it did n't matter that she thought she knew more than anybody else and always rubbed it in -- I would never dislike Mary Vance again . I went over to her and kissed her . '' ` What 's up now ? ' she said . '' ` Nothing -- only I 'm so grateful to you , Mary . ' '' ` Well , I think you ought to be , that 's a fact . You two would have let that baby die on your hands if I had n't happened along , ' said Mary , just beaming with complacency . She got Susan and me a tip-top breakfast and made us eat it , and ` bossed the life out of us , ' as Susan says , for two days , until the roads were opened so that she could get home . Jims was almost well by that time , and father turned up . He heard our tale without saying much . Father is rather scornful generally about what he calls ` old wives ' remedies . ' He laughed a little and said , ` After this , Mary Vance will expect me to call her in for consultation in all my serious cases . '
`` So Christmas was not so hard as I expected it to be ; and now the New Year is coming -- and we are still hoping for the ` Big Push ' that will end the war -- and Little Dog Monday is getting stiff and rheumatic XXXXX his cold vigils , but still he ` carries on , ' and Shirley continues to read the exploits of the aces .
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