"More than a dollar in it," the boy suggested, proudly.
Still his father sat resting his head upon his hand in silence while he seemed to be trying the point of a pen.
"You may give me five cents if you've a mind to when you open it," Socky added.
Gordon turned slowly and kissed the forehead of his little son. The boy put his arms around the neck of his father and begged him to come and lie upon the bed and tell a story.
So it happened the current of ruin was turned aside—the heat-oppressed brain diverted from its purpose. For as the man lay beside his children he began to think of them and less of himself. "I cannot leave them," he concluded. "When I go I shall take them with me."
In the long, still hours he lay thinking.
The south wind began to stir the pines, and cool air from out of the wild country came through an open window. Fathoms of dusty, dead air which had hung for weeks over the valley, growing hotter and more oppressive in the burning sunlight, moved away. A cloud passing northward flung a sprinkle of rain upon the broad, smoky flats and was drained before it reached the great river. All who were sick and weary felt the ineffable healing of the woodland breeze. It soothed the aching brain of the mill-owner and slackened the ruinous toil of his thoughts.
Gordon slept soundly for the first time in almost a month.