Page:Malot - Nobodys Boy, Crewe-Jones, 1916.djvu/130

 the event of his death, Mr. James Milligan would succeed to the fortune. He waited and hoped, but the doctors' predictions were not fulfilled. Arthur lived. It was his mother's care that saved him. When he had to be strapped to a board, she could not bear the thought of her son being closed up in a house, so she had a beautiful barge built for him, and was now traveling through France on the various canals.

Naturally, it was not the first day that I learned all this about the English lady and her son. I learned these details little by little, while I was with her.

I was given a tiny cabin on the boat. What a wonderful little room it appeared to me! Everything was spotless. The only article of furniture that the cabin contained was a bureau, but what a bureau: bed, mattress, pillows, and covers combined. And attached to the bed were drawers containing brushes, combs, etc. There was no table or chairs, at least not in their usual shape, but against the wall was a plank, which when pulled down was found to be a little square table and chair. How pleased I was to get into that little bed. It was the first time in my life that I had felt soft sheets against my face. Mother Barberin's were very hard and they used to rub my cheeks, and Vitalis and I had more often slept without sheets, and those at the cheap lodging houses at which we stayed were just as rough as Mother Barberin's.