"Well, dear, isn't Rob a 'chink'? You dreaded him at first, just as you do Phil and Teddy now. But, now you are used to him, you enjoy his coming in. Wouldn't it be so with the other boys?"
"'Tisn't so bad with just one, but when they are all here"—
"Yes, but if you had once seen them, Fred, to wear off a little of the strangeness? It is a year that you have been away from them, but they are just the same dear boys that you used to enjoy so much. And they are fonder of you than ever, for they are all so sorry for you, and want to help you."
"That's the worst of it," said Fred impatiently; "nobody can forget I'm blind one single minute!"
"Do you remember, Fred," asked Bess, "when Bert sprained his ankle two years ago? You boys went often to see him, and he enjoyed your running in. He didn't expect you to forget that he couldn't step on his foot for three or four weeks, did he?"
"Yes, I know that," admitted Fred; "but, after all, 'tisn't the same thing a bit. He was going to get right over it, and be as well as ever, and I can't ever do anything any more. Oh, Miss Bessie, I wish I could die and be through with it!" And the hot tears rolled down on her hand, as it lay against his cheek.
Poor Bess was at her wit's end. The boy was nervous and excited, and she felt that she must quiet him, but she knew not what to say. His trouble was too great, too real, to make light of it; and yet, now was the time, if ever, to impress on him the idea that he could and must be a man, in spite of it.
"'And win with them the victor's crown of gold,'"
she thought to herself, as she listened to Fred's convulsive sobs.
"My dear boy," she said very gently but firmly, as she put her arm around him and drew him over against her shoulder, "I want you to try to stop crying and listen to me. You say you can't ever do anything more, like the rest of the boys, but you have one chance that Rob and the others have not. One thing you can be now, while their turn hasn't come yet."