I do not know how long it was before the truth approached me, but it was towards evening of that day, the fifteenth, as I say, of my illness, that I said aloud:
“Mother, Tom is in the room. Why has Tom come home?”
Tom was my little brother at college. He came towards the bed as I spoke. He had his hat in his hand, and he put it up before his eyes.
“Mother!” I repeated louder than before. “Why have you sent for Tom?”
But Mother did not answer me. She leaned over me. I saw her looking down. She had the look that she had when my father died; though I was so young when that happened, I had never forgotten my mother’s look; and I had never seen it since, from that day until this hour.
“Mother! am I so sick as that? Mother!”
“Oh, my dear!” cried Mother. “Oh my dear, my dear!” ...
So after that I understood. I was greatly startled that they should feel me to be dangerously ill; but I was not alarmed.
“It is nonsense,” I said, after I had thought about it a little while. “Dr. Shadow was always a croaker. I have no idea of dying! I have nursed too many sicker people than I am. I don’t intend to die! I am able to sit up now, if I want to. Let me try.”
“I’ll hold you,” said Tom, softly enough. This pleased me. He lifted all the pillows, and held me straight out upon his mighty arms. Tom was a great athlete—took the prizes at the gymnasium. No weaker man could have supported me for fifteen minutes in the strained position by which he found that he could give me comfort and so gratify my whim. Tom held me a long time; I think it must have been an hour; but I began to suffer again, and could not judge of time. I wondered how that big boy got such infinite tenderness into those iron muscles. I felt a great respect for human flesh and bone and blood, and for the power and preciousness of the living human body. It seemed much more real to me, then, than the spirit. It seemed an absurdity that any one should suppose that I was in danger of being done with life. I said:—