Page:Her Benny - Silas K Hocking (Warne, 1890).djvu/248

224 "Where is your sister, my boy?" said Mrs. Fisher, looking a little perplexed.

"Nelly's in heaven," he said. "This is heaven, aint it?"

"No, my boy, this is not heaven," she replied.

"Oh, I thought it wur," he said, closing his eyes with a look of pain. And Mrs. Fisher's eyes became moist, as she saw the big tears stealing out under the lashes, and rolling slowly down the pale wasted cheeks.

After awhile Benny fell into a sound sleep, from which he did not awake till morning. When the doctor came next day he rubbed his hands with glee.

"Never had but one case before to equal it!" he said," but it's wonderful what children will pull through: just as you think they are going right over the precipice, they turn round, and coolly walk back into health."

"Do you think he will get better?" said Mrs. Fisher.

"More likely than not," was the reply; "the tide has turned, evidently. He had reached the crisis when you thought he was dying last night, and instead of kicking the beam, why, here he is ever so much better."

From that day Benny got better. Not rapidly; no, it was a slow coming back to health; still, he did get better. Day by day he gathered strength, though scarcely perceptible at times. The doctor rather wondered at this, for he expected his recovery to be much more rapid. But the secret lay in the fact that Benny did not want to get better. And one day, about a week after the time of which we have spoken, he positively refused to take his medicine.