"What did the doctor say?" I forced myself to ask of him.
"To be frank, Johnnie ... you're old enough to learn the truth ... he thinks you're taken down with consumption."
"That's what my mother died of."
My father shuddered and put his face down in his hands. I felt a little sorry for him, then.
"Well you've got to go West now ... and work on a farm ... or something."
I began to get ready for my trip West. Surely enough, I had consumption, if symptoms counted ... pains under the shoulder blades ... spitting of blood ... night-sweats....
But my mind was quickened: I read Morley's History of English Literature ... Chaucer all through ... Spenser ... even Gower's Confessio Amantis and Lydgate's ballads ... my recent discovery of Chatterton having made me Old English-mad.
As I read the life of young Chatterton I envied him, his fame and his early death and more than ever, I too desired to die young.