The Iron Hand Author:Howard Dean Purchase of this book includes free trial access to www.million-books.com where you can read more than a million books for free. This is an OCR edition with typos. Excerpt from book: CHAPTER III. NELLIE FASCINATES MR. TOUMP. "!t was you, was it, Walter, who found me down under the sidewalk there? I suppose I would have died if you hadn'... more »t happened along as you did." Nellie looked up gratefully into his face as she lay upon the bed at the hospital, where she had been taken after being found where she was. Walter leaned over her pillow and said that he had helped find her and that he was never so happy in his life as then to hear her speak to him. She looked up into his face again, timidly, and' hers flushed as she saw what was written so plainly there. There was a silence now as Nellie lay still, and Walter smoothed the pillow with his hand. "And it was the old drayman's little lame boy who first heard me moan, was it?" she said. "I must have them bring him here that I may thank him. You are pretty well advanced in your studies, Walter. What do you think is the matter with the little fellow ?" "Oh, it's one of those cases where there seems to be a general derangement of the system; where the parents are healthy enough, but the child is weak and sickly. I don't think that he is very long for this land." "Poor little fellow, it seems as though there ought to be something that would help him. It seems to me almost as though he had saved my life, and I wish I could do something for him. Do you suppose he suffers much, Walter—do you suppose he has much pain ?" "Oh, he must. I don't suppose he knows what it is to be free from pain." "The poor baby," said Nellie, her eyes filling with tears; "he must be a brave little fellow." "There are places where they help such cases as his, but they are so far away and it costs so much to go there and be treated that I am afraid the little fellow can't have the benefit." Nellie did not answer this, but lay ...« less