Let the little traveller in,”
sang the sweet voice over a tremulous sob.
Closer clung the thin arms, and the cool cheek was pressed against Tim’s, hot with burning tears. The little hands that had kept their house tidy, and prepared the simple meals, lay limp and useless. The eyes could not see any more, but the lips smiled and murmured a few incoherent words, soft, sweet, and then an awesome silence. The little waif Jerry had gone over the river.
“O, Miss May,” cried Tim, “they will take him in—won’t they? For, you see, the poor little chap didn’t have a square chance in this world! He’s been kicked and cuffed about, and had to go on crutches, an’ been half starved many a time, but he wouldn’t lie nor steal for all that. He ought to be happy somewheres. O, Jerry! Jerry! I loved you so! And you was true to the last!”
“They will take him in,” Miss May says, with solemn tenderness. And presently she unclasps the arms that are wound around Jerry’s neck, lays the poor hands straight, and leads Tim over by the window. He looks at her with dumb, questioning eyes, as if he would fain have her fathom the mystery that he knows so little about. She brushes away some tears; but O, what can she say to comfort him? For Jerry was all he had.
Presently Tim comes back and kisses the cold lips and stares at the strange beauty overspreading the wan face.
“O, Miss May,” he cries, “do you suppose I could ever earn enough to pay for his being buried in some country place, where there’d be a few flowers and a tree growing over him? I’d work all my life long. For he’d like it so. I can’t bear to think of having him carried away—”
“No,” she says, with a shiver. “I will see about it, Tim.” Then she gives a few orders to the woman, and goes away, leaving Tim with his “pardner.”
Dr. May shook his head at his daughter at first, and said it was folly; but two days after he had him buried in a pretty rural cemetery, with a white marble slab above his head containing two words—“Tim’s Partner.” And Tim, who takes care of the doctor’s horse now, and does odd chores, pauses occasionally and says to Miss May, “There never can be anybody quite like Jerry to me again. Over in the other country we’ll be pardners forever.”