“There is one thing more, mother—my knife, my little brass knife.”
Mrs. Flannery brought it and placed it in his thin hands.
He looked at it with such a strange expression of affection—a little well worn knife of inexpensive make. How long he had carried it in his pocket, how many times he had held it in his hand, and now—yes, now, he held it for the last time—only this little knife, yet his all, his only legacy.
“You won’t want it, will you, mother?” said he, with moist eyes and struggling with emotion.
“No, no, Tommy,” sobbed the broken hearted mother.
“I knew you wouldn’t,” said he, “for I want to give it to Bob. It ain’t much, I know, Bob,” he continued, addressing the latter; “but it’s all I have. You will keep it, won’t you, to remember me by? When you get to be a man—a rich business man with fine offices and a house of your own, look at this knife sometimes—my knife, and think of me, and how we used to work together. Yes, you will do so, won’t you, Bob?”
“I will, Tom, I will,” answered Bob, as he took the little knife into his own hands. “I will keep it always to remind me of you,” and he bowed his head upon the bed beside his dying friend and cried with sincere grief.
“It’s all right now,” responded the sufferer. “All right,” he repeated, as his mother pressed her lips to his forehead.
“All right,” again, so feebly that the last word fainted half spoken by his dying lips.
In a few moments the last death struggle was over. He was gone, poor Tom, the honest, trustful boy with a pure heart and noble friendship—cut off in the morning of his life by a sickness brought on by exposure, and an exposure made necessary that he might earn the means to supply his humble wants. A cruel world this seems sometimes, when one reflects how unevenly the joys and sorrows, and luxuries and misery are distributed among brothers and sisters, neighbors and countrymen.