“I must have ’im, Aunt Martha,” he said at last; “I must have ’em both. Some way we must get Gran’pap to make up with ’im. I don’t know how it’s to be done; but some way we must do it. It’s terrible to let it go on like this; an’ Gran’pap’s so good to me—so good. Why won’t he forgive ’im, Aunt Martha? Why won’t he?”
“I don’t know, dearie. It’s his way. His father was so before him. It’s in the blood. All we can do, you and I, all we can do is to hope and to pray. Your grandfather will never yield to argument, nor to pleading. But I still have faith to believe that some time, in some way, the good God will bring about a reconciliation.”
“Thank you, Aunt Martha! I shall hope for it, and pray for it, and work for it, too, every day and all day until it comes.”
“And may it speedily come. There, now, you are very tired; go to sleep. Try to forget everything and go to sleep! You will feel better to-morrow. Good night!”
“Good night, Auntie!”
But when the morning came Dannie did not feel better. He slept late, yet he was not refreshed by his sleep. He was still tired, and his limbs dragged heavily as he went about the house. And, try as he might to forget it, that scene in the jury room the day before was ever present in his mind, a vivid picture of what he had found—and lost. Little by little the members of the household gathered from his lips the complete story of his journey through the storm. And while Abner Pickett smiled grimly at the boy’s pluck and will and mighty determination, since it proved him to be every inch a Pickett, Aunt Martha, moved by the lad’s tale of physical suffering, and touched by the moral energy that led him to endure it, turned her head away more than once to hide the tears that kept swelling to her eyes.
In the afternoon Gabriel came home. Of the equity trial he could give no news except that the evidence had been completed and a day fixed for the argument of counsel. But of Dannie’s journey through the storm, of his appearance in the court room, of his testimony on the witness stand, he never ceased to talk. For days and weeks it formed the sole topic of his discourse.
“It was wuth a year’s wages,” he declared many a time; “it was wuth a year’s wages not to ’a’ missed it. Ez ol’ Isra’l Pidgin use to say: ‘Truth is jest ez mighty an’ pervailin’ w’en it comes f’om the lips uv a child, ez w’en it comes f’om the mouth uv an archangel.’”
That night, when Dannie went to bed, his pulse was beating rapidly, his face was flushed, his head was very hot and heavy, and he was troubled with a hacking cough. He did not complain of any pain, except the soreness and constant aching of all his joints and muscles; but that was due, he thought, to the violent effort necessary to force his way through the drifts the day before. Aunt Martha saw, however, that beyond the mere fact of physical fatigue, the boy was ill; and she insisted upon putting him to bed in the large guest-chamber adjoining her own sleeping room on the ground floor, where a fire could be kept burning on the hearth, and she could give him constant attention by night and day. He demurred to this arrangement at first, but soon, through sheer weariness, he yielded; and it was not long after his head touched the pillow, before he was fast asleep. Later in the night he appeared to be troubled and restless, and turned constantly in his bed, asking frequently for water. Aunt Martha tried to allay his fever with some simple remedies, but she found that her efforts were in vain. Early in the morning she awoke Abner Pickett and told him that Dannie was ill. He dressed himself, came in and looked at the boy, and saw, at the first glance, that the services of a physician were needed.
Before daylight Gabriel was on his way to Port Lenox to summon Dr. Chubbuck, and at nine o’clock the doctor came. He was short and stout, and red in the face, and carried with him always an air of joviality. But when he came out from the sick room he looked grave.