Page:The Atlantic Monthly, Volume 18.djvu/187

1866.] "Suppose, Hobert, we should send you off one of these days, and have you back after a few weeks, sound and vigorous as a young colt! What should you say to that, my boy?"

To the surprise of everybody, Hobert replied that he only wished it were possible.

"Possible! Why, of course it's possible! Where there's a will, you know!" And then it began to be talked of less as an insane dream.

One morning, as Jenny came into the sick man's room, she found him sitting up in bed with his shirt open and his hand on his breast.

"What is it, Hobert?" she said; for there was a look in his eyes that made her tremble.

"I don't know, Jenny; but whatever it is, it will be my death," he answered, and, falling upon her shoulder,—for she had come close to him and had her arm about his neck,—he sobbed like a child.

The little hand was slipped under his, but Jenny said she could feel nothing; and I think she will be forgiven for that falsehood. He was sick, she said, worn out, and it was no wonder that strange fancies should take possession of him. She had neglected him too much; but now, though everything should go to pieces, he should have her first care, and her last care, and all her care; he should not be left alone any more to conjure up horrors; and when he said he was weak and foolish and ashamed of his tears, she pacified him with petting and with praises. He was everything that was right, everything that was strong and manly. A little more patience, and then it would be spring, and the sunshine would make him well. She put the hair away from his forehead, and told him how fair in the face he was grown; and then she shoved his sleeve to his elbow, and told him that his arms were almost as plump as they ever were; and so he was comforted, cheered even, and they talked over the plans and prospects of years to come. At last he fell asleep with a bright smile of hope in his face, and Jenny stooped softly and kissed him, and, stealing away on tiptoe, hid herself from her good old mother and from the eyes of her children, and wept long and bitterly.

And the spring came, and Hobert crept out into the sunshine; but his cheek was pale, and his chest hollow, and there was more than the old listlessness upon him. As a tree that is dying will sometimes put forth sickly leaves and blossoms, and still be dying all the while, so it was with him. His hand was often on his breast, and his look often said, "This will be the death of me." The bees hummed in the flowers about his feet, the birds built their nests in the boughs above his head, and his children played about his knees; but his thoughts were otherwhere,—away beyond the dark river, away in that beautiful country where the inhabitants never say, "I am sick."

It was about midsummer that one Mrs. Brown, well known to Mrs. Walker's family, and to all the people of the neighborhood, as having suffered for many years with some strange malady which none of the doctors understood, sold the remnant of her property, having previously wasted nearly all she had upon physicians, and betook herself to the great Dr. Killmany. What her condition had actually been is not material to my story, nor is it necessary to say anything about the treatment she received at the hands of the great doctor. It is enough to say that it cost her her last dollar,—that she worked her slow way home as best she could, arriving there at last with shoes nearly off her feet and gown torn and faded, but with health considerably improved. That she had sold her last cow, and her feather-bed, and her teakettle, and her sheep-shears, and her grandfather's musket, all added wonderfully to the great doctor's reputation.

"You can't go to him if you don't go full-handed," said one to another; and he that heard it, and he that said it, laughed as though it were a good joke.

Some said he could see right through