On a bright day in late spring, the family’s four pre-school children played together in their back yard.  David and Stephen had taken on a project of making a flower bed next to the house, no doubt to try out their new toy garden tools.  They had turned over a little patch of dirt and were busy breaking up the clods they had turned.  It wasn’t very good garden soil, mostly clay from the excavation of the basement, so David was swinging his hoe mightily against the clods. 

Susanna’s curiosity evidently got the best of her and she toddled over to check out the project.  She came up behind her brother to get a good look, but, alas, she came too close.  A cry of shock and pain followed the blow to her forehead delivered by the back-swinging hoe.  Blood welled up in the gash and soon trickled down her nose.  Her brothers took her screaming into the house where, between sobs, Mom cleaned the wound and checked the bleeding.  Absent the blood, an inch and a half long gash was clearly visible. 

“Looks pretty nasty,” Dad said.  “It will need some stitching, else it will leave an ugly scar.  Take her to the doctor.  I’ll look after the others.” 

Upon their return an hour later Susanna, whose tears had finally dried, sported a neat bandage stretched across her forehead.  “We’re back,” said Mom. “She’s got a half-dozen or so stitches holding the skin together.  She’ll be OK in a week or so.” 

She was OK for two or three days.  David felt just awful about wounding his little sister, so he did all manner of nice things for her.  Then one day she stumbled and fell on her face.  Do toddlers usually fall on their faces?  At any rate the fall broke out some of the stitches, so back to the doctor she went. 

“I can’t replace the stitches.  They’re torn from the skin,” said the doctor. “I’ll have to use metal clamps instead.”  The clamps were V-shaped pieces of metal having claw-like ends that were dug into the skin on each side of the gash and crimped to hold the edges of the skin together.  The wound was no longer a neat piece of work, for it was now three-dimensional so that a bandage could not lie flat against the wound.  “You must not let her fall again.” 

Back home again, Mom spoke, “Listen carefully children.  Susanna must not be allowed to fall again.  I want you all to take turns watching her.  When she needs to walk somewhere hold her hand and walk with her.” 

During the next two weeks, Susanna was coupled with a sibling any time she was awake.  The new bandage was a bulky thing. A length of gauze rolled at each end to form a trough in the middle leaving room for the newly installed clamps.  She looked weird. 

One day while she was healing, Dad took the trash out for disposal and found the garbage can full to the brim.  He pressed the contents down as far as he could, but there was still not room for his contribution. What to do? It needed a heavier push.  Dad lifted a foot and pushed down.  Not enough.  Trying both feet would surely do the trick.  His full body weight did indeed compress the trash.  His feet sank into the can making ample room for the additional trash, but, alas, the can was not on a stable foundation.  The can tilted.  With both feet sunk into the can, he had no escape.  He and the can fell sideways, landing him on his side with his elbow pinned under his chest.  He eventually escaped with a sharp pain in his side where the rib had broken. Susanna and Dad suffered together for a time; and while Susanna healed nicely with a neat looking scar, Dad suffered on, dreading to sneeze, cough or especially to laugh.