The doctor took his hand. “You’re getting to be a man now, my son, you will soon be thirteen. You must be brave. Your mother will not live through the night.”
The boy sank on his knees beside the still white figure, tenderly clasped her thin hand in his, and began to kiss it slowly. He would kiss it, lay his wet cheek against it, and try to warm it with his hot young blood.
It was about nine o’clock when she opened her eyes with a smile and looked into his face.
“My sweet boy,” she whispered.
“Oh! Mama, do try to live! Don’t leave me,” he sobbed in quivering tones as he leaned over and kissed her lips. She smiled faintly again.
“Yes, I must go, dear. I am tired. Your papa is waiting for me. I see him smiling and beckoning to me now. I must go.”
A sob shook the boy with an agony no words could frame.
“There, there, dear, don’t,” she soothingly said, “you will grow to be a brave strong man. You will fight this battle out, and win back our home and bring your own bride here in the far away days of sunshine and success I see for you. She will love you, and the flowers will blossom on the lawn again. But I am tired. Kiss me—I must go.”
Her heart fluttered on for a while, but she never spoke again.
At ten o’clock Mrs. Durham tenderly lifted the boy from the bedside, kissed him, and said as she led him to his room, “She’s done with suffering, Charlie. You are going to live with me now, and let me love you and be your mother.”