“Chub!” yells Buckshot, “git Billy Trowbridge!”
“Don’t you cry, ner nothin’,” says Hairoil t’ Mace. And whilst he helt her back, they packed me acrosst the platform and up-stairs into one of them rooms over the lunch-counter. And then, ’fore I could say Jack Robinson, they hauled my coat off, put a wet towel ’round my forrid, and put me into bed. After that, they pulled down the curtains, and bunched t’gether on either side of my pilla.
“Shucks!” I says. “I’m all right. Let me up, you blamed fools!”
Just then, Monkey Mike come runnin’ in with the parson, and the parson put out a hand t’ make me be still. “My dear friend,” he says, “I’m sorry this happened.” And he was so darned worried lookin’ that I begun t’ think somethin’ shore was wrong with me, and I laid quiet.
Next, the door opened and in come Mace!
The room was so dark she couldn’t see much at first. So, she stepped closter, walkin’ soft, like she didn’t want to jar nobody. “Alec!” she says tearful.
“Macie!”
She stooped over me.
The boys turned they backs.
Aw, my dear little gal! Her lips was cold, and tremblin’.