“Father,” he said again, “I’ve come—to see Dannie.”
Still the old man did not answer, but he motioned with his head toward the inner room, and then turned again to the fire. So Charlie entered the room where his sick child lay. Aunt Martha met him at the threshold and kissed the cheek he bent down to her. Dannie was talking softly in his delirium, in the broken sentences that tell of rapid respiration. He thought he was walking up the gap in the moonlight, with his father, the engineer.
“It’s most morning now,” he murmured; “I—must hurry home. Gran’pap—don’t know—I’m out. Yes, it is; it’s a—beautiful curve, beautiful. That’s my—mother’s grave there—you know. Gran’pap wouldn’t—have a stake there—for worlds—an’ worlds. You’re so good—to go—around it. That’s because—you’re my father. Are you—my father? I’m so glad. Don’t hold me—quite so tight—father; it hurts me—here in my side—so. That’s better. Who’s that—pulling you away? Don’t go, father,—don’t go. Oh, don’t go!”
“No, Dannie; I’ll not go. I’m here now to stay until you get well.”
Dannie opened his eyes wearily, and saw his father’s face bent over him. He did not seem surprised, only gratified. He reached out both his hot hands and grasped the strong cool hand of his father.
“I’m so glad—you’re going—to stay,” he said; “I want you—all the time. I lost you—last night—in the snow. I called—and called—but you didn’t—hear me. I’m so glad—you’re here again—so glad—so glad!”
With his father’s hand in his he fell asleep, and on his face, for the first time during his illness, there was an expression of supreme content.
When Dr. Chubbuck left the sick-room the next morning no one asked him how his patient was; the look on his face forestalled that question. He sent his team and driver back to Port Lenox. “I shall not leave here to-day,” he said; “the boy needs me.”
So he watched hour after hour at Dannie’s bedside, fighting, with every resource of skill and experience, against what seemed, to all, to be the inevitable end. At midnight the crisis came. They all knew it was on. No one in the house went to bed. Gabriel, in the kitchen hallway, stood ready for instant service, as he had stood for days—and nights. Even Max, lying by the sitting-room fire, never took his sleepless eyes from the door that led to Dannie’s room. The hush that tells of the near approach of man’s last enemy lay heavy on the house and all its inmates. There came a time when even those who were nearest and dearest to the sick boy could no longer bear the strain of watching at his bedside. The sudden fall of temperature, predicted by the doctor, had come, bringing its ghastly pallor, its relaxed muscles, its vivid signs of physical collapse; and Abner Pickett and his son, both unable to continue looking on the unequal struggle, had left the room.
Since Charlie’s arrival, the night before, no word had passed between them. The old man maintained a studied silence that said as plainly as words could have expressed it that he did not intend to permit Dannie’s desperate illness to be made the occasion for a reconciliation. And Charlie, looking now and again at the haggard and anxious, yet determined, face of his father, knew that even Dannie’s death would not suffice to bridge the awful gulf of estrangement. They sat there now, in the outer room, the old man, with his chin in his hands, staring into the fire, and Charlie resting his head on the table and waiting for the end; and the unhappy, the unholy power of stubborn pride and self-will and resentment holding them aloof from each other, while, under their very eyes, death was grappling for a life that either would have given his own to save.