The girl jumped up with a cry of astonishment.
“Why, Tom! When did you get here? We wanted to write to you, but we didn’t know where you were. Where have you been? You look like an Indian—all brown and thin.”
“Up in the woods. I’ve just been in town—saw Armstrong, and he told me about father. Do you think he’s dangerously sick?”
“I don’t know, Tom. He’s up all the time, but he can’t sleep and doesn’t eat. We can’t get him to do anything. I think he’s worrying about business, but he never says anything, not even to mamma. You’d better come and see him. He’s up-stairs.”
Tom followed his sister through the hallways of the great hotel, up a flight of stairs, and into the suite of rooms that his father had taken. No one was in them just then; for Mrs. Jackson had gone down-stairs, and her husband was on the private balcony outside, where he spent the sunny part of the days.
Here Tom found him, lying back in a long chair, wrapped closely in a steamer rug, looking pitifully old and broken. Tom could not remember having ever seen his father ill before; and a lump rose in his throat, and he could barely mutter something as he grasped the sick man’s hand. Mr. Jackson greeted him with some pleasure, but his manner was absent and almost indifferent. Tom had a heartbreaking sense that he had meant nothing to his father’s life; he had a conviction also that Armstrong was right, and Mr. Jackson would not long outlast the business he had created.
“This is a good place to come to, Father,” he said, with an effort to be cheerful. “It ought to set you up in no time.”
“The place is well enough,” said the lumberman slowly. “It’s too fashionable to suit me, but your mother likes it, and you can smell the pine woods here. That smell does me good; but I’m getting to be an old man, and there’s no medicine for that.”
“Nonsense! You’re just overworked. You’ll be a young man again after a month’s rest,” Tom remonstrated. “I’m going to take you out in a canoe, trolling for salmon trout.”
Mr. Jackson did not appear to welcome this suggestion.