Page:Her Benny - Silas K Hocking (Warne, 1890).djvu/244

220 laid gently in a clean soft bed, in a cool pleasant room. Once only he opened his eyes, looked around him with a bewildered air, then relapsed again into unconscionsness.

The doctor, who arrived toward evening, pronounced it a very bad case, ordered port wine to be poured down his throat in small quantities during the night, and promised to call again next day.

"Will he live?" was Mrs. Fisher's anxious question.

"Fear not," said the doctor; "want, exposure, and I fear also sunstroke, have done their work. Whoever the little fellow belongs to, he's had a hard time of it, and to such death should not be unwelcome."

During the next day Benny was conscious at brief intervals, but he lay so perfectly still, with half-closed eyes, that they hardly knew at times whether he was alive or dead.

His face was as white as the pillow on which he lay, and his breathing all but imperceptible. The doctor shook his head when he came, but held out no hope of recovery.

So that summer Sabbath passed away, and Monday came and went, and Tuesday followed in the track, and Wednesday dawned, and still Benny's life trembled in the balance. The doctor said there was no perceptible increase of strength, while the pulse, if anything, was weaker. Hence, without some great change, he thought the boy would not live many hours longer.

Outside the birds twittered in the trees, and the song of the haymakers floated on the still summer air; but within, in a darkened room, little Benny to all appearance lay dying.