"I'm not afraid," declared June. "I go to bed in the dark and go places by myself or anything."
"I don't mean that way," said his mother. "I mean doing hard things just because they are right, staying behind for instance when—when somebody you love very much has to go away and leave you."
June sat up and looked at her. "Who's going away?" he demanded.
Mother's voice faltered. "Father's terribly ill with a fever, June. The letter was waiting here, it is from our old doctor in Manila, he says, 'Come on first steamer, but don't bring the boy.'" The earth seemed suddenly to be slipping from under June's feet, he clutched at his mother's hand. "I am going too!" he cried in quick alarm, "I won't stay behind, I can't, mother!"
Her arm tightened about him. "But I don't dare take you, June, think of the terrible heat and the fever, and you are the only little boy I've got in the world, and I love you so!"
"I won't take the fever," protested June. "I'll be good. I'll mind every word Seki says."
"But Seki isn't going. She wants to take you home with her down to a little town on the Inland Sea, where there are all sorts of wonderful things to do. Would you stay with her, June, while I go to father?"
Her voice pleaded with eagerness and anxiety, but June did not heed it. Slipping from her arms, he threw himself on the floor and burst into a passion of tears. All the joys of the enchanted country had vanished, nothing seemed to count except that mother was thinking of leaving him in this strange land and sailing away from him across the sea.
"Don't cry so, June, listen," pleaded his mother. "I have not decided, I am trying to do what is best."
But June refused to be consoled. Over and over he declared that he would not stay, that he would rather have the fever, and die than to be left behind.