“Go on back to work, Willie,” she was about to say, but the Angel had gone a-dreaming and his face was sad, and she said instead:
“What is it, Willie?”
“I know whut's been the matter with me, Miss Hildy—I hain't been the same since my mother died six year ago.” For a moment St. Hilda took a little silence to gain self-control.
“You mean,” she said sternly, “‘come might' nigh dyin',’ Willie, and two years ago.”
“Well, Miss Hildy, hit 'pears like six.” Her brain whirled at the working of his, but his eyes, his smile, and the halo, glorified just then by a bar of sunlight, were too much for St. Hilda, and she gathered him into her arms.
“Oh, Willie, Willie,” she half-sobbed; “I don't know what to do with you!” And then, to comfort her, the Angel spoke gently:
“Miss Hildy, jes' don't do—nothin'.”
The Pope of the Big Sandy
He entered a log cabin in the Kentucky hills. An old woman with a pair of scissors cut the tie that bound him to his mother and put him in swaddling-clothes of homespun. Now, in silk pajamas, with three doctors and two nurses to make his going easy, he was on his way out of a suite of rooms ten stories above the splendor of Fifth Avenue.
It was early morning. A taxi swung into the paved circle in front of the hotel below and a little man in slouch-hat and black frock coat, and with his trousers in his boots, stepped gingerly out. He took off the hat with one hand, dropped his saddle-pockets from the other, and mopped his forehead with a bandanna handkerchief.