"Oh, but you haven't heard the latest ones," Joyce exclaimed. "Mamma's reports of Jack's condition and Jack's own little pencilled scrawls. I can read between the lines just what a desperate fight he is making, and this last one from Mary simply knocked all the props out from under the hope I had been clinging to."
She picked up the last envelope on the pile, postmarked March first, and turned to the closing pages:
"'Jack is so much worse that I can scarcely think of anything else. We are so worried about him. He is in bed all the time now, and is growing so thin and weak. He is very despondent,—something new for him. It keeps us busy trying to think of things to tempt his appetite or to arouse him out of his listlessness. He has always been so cheerful before—so full of jokes and so responsive to any attempt to amuse him. But now he doesn't seem to want to talk or to be read to or anything. Once in a while he'll smile a wan little sort of smile when I repeat some of the children's doings, but he isn't like himself any more. Sometimes I believe he's just worn out with the long effort he's made to be brave and keep up for our sake.
"'It is hard for me to keep my interest in the children keyed up to the proper pitch any more, when all the time I am thinking how pitiful and white he looks, lying back on his pillows. I am telling you exactly how things are because I would want you to tell me if I were in your place and you in mine. I can understand how hard it is for you to be so far away where you can't see for yourself how he is, every hour. I'll try to send a note or postal each day.
"'He's talked about you a lot, lately. Says you have the pioneer spirit of all our old Colonial grandmothers, to stick to your post the way you are doing for our sakes. He's constantly referring to things that happened at the Wigwam, and to the people who used to come there,—Mr. Ellested and the Lees and Phil,—especially Phil. I wish he could drop in here to see us daily as he used to do in Arizona. Maybe Jack would rouse up and take some interest in him. He doesn't take any now in the people we have met here, although no one could be kinder than the Rochesters and the Barnabys have been to us.'"
Joyce finished reading, and Phil rose to his feet and began pacing up and down the long room, his hands in his pockets and his eyes fixed on the floor as if he were considering some weighty problem. Finally he stopped, and leaning against the mantel, looked down at her, thoughtfully, saying, "Joyce, I've about thought out a way to manage it—to take in Bauer on my way to California, I mean. You told me once that Aunt Emily calls me her 'other boy.' Well, you all are my other family, and these glimpses you've given me of it make me homesick to see them. I might be able to help matters some way. I'm almost sure I can arrange to start several days before the rest of the party and go around that way, so if you have any messages or things to send, get them ready."
"Oh, Phil!" she cried, thankfully. "They'll be so glad—I know it will do them a world of good to see you. Maybe you can cheer Jack up a bit. So much depends on keeping him hopeful." Then she added, wistfully, "I only wish you could put me in your pocket and take me along."
"I wish I could," he answered, cordially. Then more cordially still after a moment's thought, "Why, that's the very thing! Come and go along! Just cut loose for a short visit and let things here go hang! It would mean more to them at home to see you again than the few dollars you could pile up if you stayed on here."
"No," she contradicted, sadly, the light dying out of her eyes, which had brightened at the mere thought of such a visit. "It's too long a trip and too expensive, and—"