Elder Brewster himself had, at the very first, paused by Miles's bed, and spoken gravely to him of how his mother was now in a more blessed place, and he must try always to be a good boy, so some day he might join her. Though he listened dutifully, Miles did not care for the Elder's admonitions as much as he cared for Mistress Brewster's words. Newly risen from her sick-bed, she came to him, and, sitting by his pallet, whispered him of his mother, and how, before she died, she had left her love for him, and bidden him always be a good lad and a good brother to the little wench. "Though my lad will be that without my bidding," Alice Rigdale had added. "He has always been a good little son to me."
Miles listened, with his face held stolid; it was only when Mistress Brewster bent and kissed him, like his mother, that he blinked fast and turned away his head.
Day by day he grew stronger, till he sat up in bed, and then, by slow stages, was suffered to put on his clothes and walk staggeringly across the room. The next advance was his going out into the air, which would doubtless have been longer deferred if any one had had time to give close heed to the sick boy. But Doctor Fuller was busied elsewhere, and the Elder was looking to others of the sick folk, so, one morning when Lister had helped Miles into his clothes, the boy took matters into his own hands by slipping out at the door.
It was a rare, mild March day, with a tender wind of the spring that came from the western woods. The earth was soft beneath the foot; the few bushes that clambered up the bluff across the way were bursting with brown buds; and the blue harbor dazzled under the vivid sunlight. Leaning against the doorpost, Miles joyfully drank in the freshness of the morning, though his eyes grew wistful as he looked again to the bluff yonder where were the levelled graves.
"'Do you like to do it, Captain Standish?'"
Presently he summoned up his strength, and, stepping cautiously off the doorstone, picked his way round to the east side of the house, where the sun was warmest. Here the ground was trodden and bare, save for the chips scattered about the logs, of which there was a great heap stacked against the house-wall. At the other side of the pile, a tub of water rested on a great block, and, most marvellous of all, over the tub, busily washing a mass of bed-linen, bent Captain Standish.
Miles caught his breath in a gasp of surprise that made the Captain look up. "So you're well recovered, Miles?" he asked cheerily.
The boy nodded, and set himself down on the woodpile.
"Cast on my doublet, there beside you, if you will be sitting here," said Standish, and, shaking the water off his hands, came and wrapped the garment about Miles.