“Hal!” Benjy exclaimed, “you aren’t going to take that long hard ride tonight. You know that it isn’t safe to go through Red River mountain pass alone after dark.”
“Even so, there must not be another moment’s delay. I must go tonight. I want you to keep your door open. If our mother stirs, go to her.”
“I won’t try to sleep,” the younger boy replied. “I do not waken easily. I’ll sit up all night.” Hal grasped his brother’s hand to show his approval and then he was gone. It was the hardest night that Benjy Wilson ever lived through, but in it he left his heedless, selfish boyhood in which he had accepted all that his mother had done for him, as due, and realized that he, too, must share the burdens and responsibilities that came every day. When Hal returned at the grey of the next dawn, one glance at his tired brother assured him that his confidence in the younger boy had not been misplaced. Then followed a long half hour filled with anxiety of waiting while the kindly physician made a thorough examination of the little woman so loved by these two boys.
“Where’s our father?” Benjy suddenly asked as he looked up from the fire on the hearth at which he had been thoughtfully gazing since the kindly physician had entered their mother’s room fifteen minutes before.
“Father went to visit the North camp last week and he has not yet returned,” Harry said. “I am glad, for he does not know that our mother has given up trying to keep about. That of course would worry him greatly. I hope that she will be much better before he returns. Dad depends on mother so completely for his comfort and happiness that I fear he would collapse if he knew the truth, as, of course he must know it soon.”
Again they were silent and it was still another quarter of an hour before the door opened. Both boys were on their feet at once eagerly scanning the face of the physician. His cheerful smile was encouraging.
“Lads,” he said as he placed a hand on the shoulder of each, “your mother is not going to die. Mrs. Wilson has unwisely permitted a condition to exist for a long time which should have been corrected months ago. There are very few casualties resulting from the operation which your mother must undergo.”
There was a sudden glad light in the face of the older lad.
“Doctor Warren,” he said, “the hope you are giving us is the greatest joy that has ever come into my life.”
The elderly physician, gazing at the earnest faces, thought that he had never met finer boys. Worthy sons of a brave, courageous little mother.