The wise men all laughed, and there was some sense in the laugh that applauded the oracle.
Tim Tyler and Bob Landers had both been carried to their homes. Bob escaped serious injury, but it was found that Tim was badly burned.
“I felt it a good deal at the very first,” he told Mr. Walton one day, “when, in going after my coat, I happened to open a door where the fire was, and it darted at me. You see the pain stopped, but now it has started up.”
“Yes, I understand that while the first contact with the fire is painful, then what you might call a paralyzing of the nerves takes place, and feeling is benumbed. When the action of the fire ceases, and the attempt at healing sets in, the nerves try to do their duty and the pain starts up once more. I have thought that the old martyrs who were burned at the stake, while they smarted terribly at first, had an easier time after that. Bad enough to step upon the hot round of such a ladder to heaven, but it was easier climbing after that. You got confused, Tim, didn’t you, in the mill, when trying to find your way back?”
“O yes; and as I said, I opened a door where the fire rushed at me. It was so smoky I wonder I ever got out at all. It seems I had some good friends.”
“Yes, and God was your best friend, and he helped you, and if you are not a martyr, you can try to bear your pain as patiently as you can, and some people in bearing pain stand more than the martyrs even.”
Tim looked up. “Could you—could you—say a small prayer for me? I don’t want to knuckle under, but grin and bear it best I can.”
When Mr. Walton came out into the kitchen where Ann was she said: “I heard Tim ask you to pray. That was a good deal for him to do. Afore, you did it without the asking, but I was glad to have him just speak up for himself. O, he has been a softenin’ since the fire, a comin’ round a good deal.”
“Where is your brother?”
“Mine? Tim, you mean?”