VI.
CHOOSING A MASTER.
“And Elijah said, How long halt ye between two opinions? If the Lord be God, follow Him; but if Baal, then follow him.”
Dick found lying still from morning till night very dull and tiresome. Mose was at work again, and as the good-natured nurse took upon herself the general house-work, which Mose had managed for more than a year under his grandmother’s direction, Dick was necessarily left alone a good part of the time. It was quite a relief when little Peter was allowed to scramble over the bed, asking questions by the score; still more delightful was it to be bolstered up in the big wooden rocker and drawn out into the cheery little kitchen beside cheery old Aunty McFane, who knew exactly the kind of bear stories boys like best to hear. It seemed a little strange nothing was said about his going home, and that lately his mother had so seldom come to see him.
One day when nurse had gone out to gossip with some of the neighbors, Dick’s patience gave way, and he broke out, with an oath,—
“Great deal folks care for a fellow,—not to come nigh him for most a week! Shut up in this hole, kept on slops, and the doctor running knives into you when he takes a notion.” Another oath finished the sentence.
“Didn’t you know, haven’t they told you your mother was sick?” said Aunty McFane, gravely.
Dick leaned back among his pillows, white and trembling. “How—why—what made her sick?” he stammered.
“She jest overdone, tending to her work and looking after you; and one day, when you was the worst, she came in the rain and got chilled through. She’s never been well sence, but she kept up till last week. She was better yesterday. I don’t think God means to take her from you just yet.”
Dick looked steadily at the old clock; the little mouse nibbling away in the pantry stopped to hear how loud it ticked through the stillness.