Tears were running down the old man's cheeks, and that strange thing which now and then came up in Bud's throat and stopped him from talking came again. He walked out and sat under a tree in the yard. He looked at the other children sitting around stupid—numbed—with the vague look in their faces which told that a sorrow had fallen, but without the sensitiveness to know or care where. He saw a big man, bronzed and hard-featured, but silent and sorrowful, walking to and fro. Now and then he would stop and look earnestly through the window at the little still figure on the bed, and then Bud would hear him say—“like little Jack—like little Jack.”
The sun went down—the stars came up—but Bud sat there. He could do nothing, but he wanted to be there.
When the lamp was lighted in the cabin he could see all within the home and that an old man held on a large pillow in his lap a little child, and that he carried her around from window to window for air, and that the child's eyes were fixed, and she was whiter than the pillow. He also saw an old woman, lantern-jawed and ghostly, tidying around and she mumbling and grumbling because no one would give the child any turpentine.
And still Bud sat outside, with that lump in his throat, that thing that would not let him speak.
Late at night another man came up with saddle bags, and hitching his horse within a few feet of Bud, walked into the cabin.
He was a kindly man, and he stopped in the doorway and looked at the old man, sitting with the sick child in his lap. Then he pulled a chair up beside the old man and took the child's thin wrist in his hand. He shook his head and said:
“No use, Bishop—better lay her on the bed—she can't live two hours.”
Then he busied himself giving her some drops from a vial.
“When you get through with your remedy and give her up,” said the old man slowly—“I'm gwinter try mine.”
The Doctor looked at the old man sorrowfully, and after a while he went out and rode home.