"I'm glad he's better, and—and is he through with the book?" he asked eagerly.
"The book? What book is it, my dear? Sure the nurse does be reading a hundred books to him."
"A brown book: Stories of Gods and Heroes. I—I'd like it, if he's through with it. I stay at the libr'y, and I sent it to him—" he sank on the step, exhausted.
The kind-hearted girl dragged him into the hall. "Come out with me, dear, and get a glass of cold milk," she said. "You've walked too far."
Seated on a chair in the kitchen, his eyes closed, he heard, as in a dream, his friend's voice raised in dispute with some distant person.
"And I say he shall have it, then. Walking all this way! And him lame, too! Tell Emma to put it on the tray, and leave it in the hall. The child's well enough now, anyway. I'll go get it myself—I'm not afraid. The whole of us had the fever, and no such smelling sheets pinned up, and no fuss at all, at all. I'm as good as a paid nurse, any day, if you come to that. A book'll hurt no one."
Later he found himself perched beside the coachman, who was going to meet a train, the beloved book tight in his arms. He fingered it lovingly; he smelled the leaves like a little dog. For the first time in his life he took it to his home, and clasped it in his arms as he lay in bed.
For days he did not appear, and it was Thomas, the janitor, who went finally to look him up, troubled by the children's reports of his illness. He returned grave-faced.
"It's the fever, Miss Watkins, and they say there's little chance for him, the poor little feller! He was worn out with the heat. They don't know how he got it. He's out of his mind. To think of Jimmy like that!"