Page:While the Billy Boils, 1913.djvu/299

 best horse and spoilt two others riding for a doctor, but it was of no use. In the last half-hour of his life we all gathered round Malachi's bed; he was only twenty-two. Once he said:

'I wonder how mother'll manage now?'

'Why, where's your mother?' some one asked gently; we had never dreamt that Malachi might have some one to love him and be proud of him.

'In Bathurst,' he answered wearily―'she'll take on awful, I 'spect, she was awful fond of me―we've been pulling together this last ten years―mother and me―we wanted to make it all right for my little brother Jim―poor Jim!'

'What's wrong with Jim?' someone asked.

'Oh, he's blind,' said Malachi―'always was―we wanted to make it all right for him agin time he grows up―I―I managed to send home about―about forty pounds a year―we bought a bit of ground, and―and―I think―I'm―going now. Tell 'em, Harry―tell 'em how it was.'

I had to go outside then. I couldn't stand it any more. There was a lump in my throat and I'd have given anything to wipe out my share in the practical jokes, but it was too late now.

Malachi was dead when I went in again, and that night the hat went round with the squatter's cheque in the bottom of it and we made it 'all right' for Malachi's blind brother Jim.