The conductor saw how his face had changed. It seemed older and thinner, and the eyes were darker.
“Something wrong, eh?” he said kindly. “Well, I’ll look you up after a while, and we’ll talk it all over.”
Tommy made his way into the coach, hardly knowing whether to be glad or sorry at this meeting. He was longing for a friend to talk to, and yet he was vaguely ashamed of the confession he might have to make. Could it be possible, he asked himself, that he no longer loved his father and his mother—that he was unwilling to make a sacrifice for them as they had done for him? But then, the sacrifice asked of him would be so much the greater. It was nothing to sacrifice the body, but to sacrifice the brain as well—that was another thing. His breast had never been torn by such a battle as was waging there now.
The conductor did not forget his promise. So soon as he had attended to his other duties, he dropped into the seat beside Tommy.
“Now, what is it?” he asked. “Tell me; it’ll do you good. Get into some trouble at school?”
Tommy shook his head.
“No,” he said, “it’s not that. Father was hurt in the mines—and maybe—won’t—get well.”
The conductor took the boy’s hands in both his ample ones and patted them softly.
“Don’t you worry,” he said. “It’ll turn out all right. These accidents always look worse at first than they are. You’ll soon be coming back again over this same road.”
Tommy felt that he must speak—the weight was too heavy for him to bear alone.