Page:Scarlet Sister Mary (1928).pdf/201

 People were trying to change the world, letting new ways creep in every day. Except for that newfangled hay-press, Keepsie would have his two good legs to-day. But the poor little fellow had so much curiosity about everything, instead of keeping his distance while the old mule pulled the long pole round and round, packing the hay into tight little bales, he went close to the machine to see how it tightened down on the wire bands before it clipped them off. Somehow, only God knows how, before Keepsie could get out of the way, it caught his leg and held it fast, and clipped it off the same as a wire around a hay bale. The people screamed and cried, but Keepsie made no sound. He knew he had done wrong. He knew Big Boy had warned him about going close to that hay-press. Big Boy told him it was a blind contraption made by white men and it would cut off a boy's arm or leg as quickly as wire.

God must have sent that white doctor from town to go deer hunting. Maum Hannah said so.

Big Boy got him to come and fix Keepsie's leg. Keepsie's eyes got big and shiny, but he held himself still and did not flinch when the white doctor took scissors and trimmed his ragged meat and sewed his skin with a needle and thread the same as cloth.