And was that all Tom knew, all he realized after all these years and with his memory of that terrible day long ago? Well, that was just as Thorndyke had meant it should be, just as he was trying to have it all the time; and why should he feel this strange pain when he found it was so? He had been so bent on being a brave soldier.
He had let every one look at him, and heard whisperings now and then, and had done his work, and gone home with a smile for the doctor and Nellie, and the thought of the great Captain had kept him strong through it all. It had been hard enough sometimes, and some of the hardest had been when the other boys came in to tell Aleck about their games or their excursions, or to beg him off to join them.
“All but me!” always came quickly up with its old ring, and brought with it the echo of what the doctor had said when he nodded good-by to him at the school-room.
“Remember you don’t run too hard till you are used to it; but I wont be afraid to match you with the fleetest of them, in a few months’ time.”
He thought no one had ever guessed a word; the pale face and great dark eyes looked quietly over the counter, or went about their work, or smiled good-by as Aleck went off, as if they had no thought of anything else; but Aleck and the doctor knew it all; and the doctor used to tramp up and down the room now and then, until Nelly would glance up wonderingly from her work.
“The very same! The very same look he gave me the first time he opened his eyes at me, after it began to seem as if he might pull through after all! Nothing in the world for him, and it’s all right there shouldn’t be, and he’s glad there’s such a good time for you and me; that’s what there is in that smile of his.”
“I don’t see how he can quite feel that there’s nothing in the world for him when he has us all,” said Nelly gently. “He surely can’t forget that.”
“No,” said the doctor, “he does not forget that, and I don’t believe the thought of us is out of his mind a moment from the time he leaves the house in the morning, and he hangs upon it till he comes back at night; but still, life has something outside of us, or ought to have, to a fellow like him. And it would have had, if it hadn’t been for a set of miserable——”
The doctor’s book was very near taking another fly out of the window; but he only added quietly, “However, he’ll find out that he’s somebody yet, and make his fortune, if nothing more. Halliday says he’s a genius, and he’ll be known as the first chemist in the state, some day.”