“No doubt, unless,” added the doctor half in earnest, “they should receive the same shock that struck Biggs and Hutt.”
“In that evint, they will be home still earlier.”
“Come on; I’m beginning to feel hungry.”
“And I’m wid ye there.”
CHAPTER IV — Curious Sights And Doings
One of the incidents which made that night memorable in the life of Mike Murphy was that it brought him a compliment, the equal of which he had never received before, nor in the years to come can any similar words so touch his heart.
Ruth Spellman, or “Sunbeam” as she was coming to be called, was so interested in his fairy stories that when the time arrived for her to go to bed she was restless and the mother feared it was something in the nature of a fever that disturbed her. The father, however, assured his wife that it was due to mental excitement and would soon pass away. When Ruth had said her prayers, kissed each good night and lain down on her cot, with the thin blanket spread over her, she still fidgeted. From the next room the three heard her tossing as children will do when sleep fails to soothe them.
Suddenly they heard her pleading voice:
“Cousin Mike, won’t you please sing to me?”
“I’ll do my bist,” he replied with a laugh, as he walked back and sat on a camp stool beside her couch, where only a small portion of the light from the front apartment reached them. He began the baby song with which his mother had often lulled him to slumber in infancy. Its exquisite sweetness was beyond description, the parents sat motionless and listening as much enthralled as the little one for whose benefit it was sung. They were almost holding their breath when Sunbeam murmured during one of the slight pauses: