He was back at the station for the two-twenty-four and picked up two passengers for the hotel. He hoped that June would come out for the luggage, but it was another boy who attended to the arrivals and Wayne drove off again without seeing June. It got no warmer as the afternoon progressed and Wayne was shivering most of the time. When the five o’clock express was in and he had satisfied himself that there were no fares for his conveyance he drove back to the stable as fast as the horse would trot, unharnessed, and set out for home. That walk seemed interminable and he thoroughly envied a gang of track workers who, having eaten their supper, were sitting at ease around a stove in an old box car which had been fitted up for living purposes. It was all Wayne could do to drag a tired and aching and shivering body past that stove!
It was almost dusk when he finally crept down the embankment, squirmed between the wires of the fence and, with the light from “Carhurst” guiding him, floundered across the field. June had a fine fire going in the stove and when Wayne had pushed the door half open and squeezed through he simply slumped onto the seat and closed his eyes, immensely thankful for warmth and shelter. June viewed him at first with surprise and then with misgiving.
“What’s the matter with you, Mas’ Wayne?” he asked.
Wayne shook his head and muttered: “Just tired, June.” Then he had a spasm of shivering and reached for a blanket. June observed him anxiously for a moment. Then:
“You got a chill, that’s what you got,” he said decisively. “You lay yourself right down there an’ I’ll cover you up. My sakes!”
The last exclamation was called forth by a sudden fit of sneezing that left Wayne weak and with streaming eyes.
“Lawsy-y-y, child, but you got a cold sure enough!” said June. “What-all you been doin’, I like to know? You fix yourself for bed this yere minute. My goodness, ’tain’ goin’ to do for you to go an’ get sick, Mas’ Wayne!”
June bustled around and brewed a pot of tea, a cup of which he insisted on Wayne’s swallowing while it was still so hot that it almost burned the latter’s mouth. After that June piled all the blankets on the invalid and sternly told him to go to sleep. Rather to Wayne’s surprise, he found that, as tired and played out as he was, sleep wouldn’t come. He had aches in queer places and his head seemed due to burst apart almost any moment. With half-closed eyes he lay and watched June cook and eat his supper. Now and then he dozed for a minute or two. The warmth from the stove, the hot tea he had drank, and the piled-on blankets presently had their effect, and Wayne, muttering remonstrances, tried to throw off some of the cover. But June was after him on the instant.
“Keep them blankets over you, Mas’ Wayne,” he commanded sternly. “You got to sweat that cold out.”
“I’m hot,” protested Wayne irritably.