It was with difficulty that she could repress her tears as she took the package, which had suddenly become so stale and poor and worthless a thing, and walked homeward with it.
It could hardly be called a home to which she was going back, for she had neither father nor mother to give that sacred character to the shabby little house she now approached. But this house contained, all the same, the being who was at once the source of the sweetest pleasure and the keenest pain in her young life. This was her little brother, who, long ago, had had an injury from a fall, and who had been an invalid and a cripple ever since. The whole responsibility of his care, as well as his support, was upon Ethel, and she had been able to discharge it by means of a position in the village school, which paid her just enough for the bare living of the two. For years her brother’s case had been considered hopeless, and the local doctor, saying he could do no good, had not kept up his visits. Lately, however, Ethel had heard of wonderful things achieved by a distinguished surgeon in a great city not far away, and it had now became an ardent hope in her heart to take little Bob there. She confided this wish to the woman with whom they boarded, but the rural mind is slow to catch enthusiasm, and she had only responded by saying that it would take more money than ever she could scrape together. Ethel had managed to save a little by great economy, and she calculated that this would cover the traveling expenses, if only she could get from somewhere enough to pay the doctor.
This had been the spur that had led her to make that desperate effort with the story, and to lay bare the deepest and most sacred feelings of her heart. She was a very reserved girl, and she never could have done it, but for the safety of distance, and the protection of a name that was not her own.
Well, she had done it, and done it conscientiously. She had “dipped her pen in herself” and written out of her own heart, and this was the result—to have the record of her soul-life returned with thanks, or perhaps without them. She felt no interest in opening the packet, and went and thrust it out of sight in the back of a drawer in her own room as soon as she reached the house. Bob was in pain, and he called to her crossly, and complained because she had left him. He was often impatient with her, and she generally bore it sweetly; but to-day it cut and irritated her.
She said nothing, however, as she took off her hat and came to the side of the couch where he was lying. The child looked up and saw tears in her eyes, and his face and tone grew more resentful still.
“What are you crying about?” he said. “What business have you to cry, when you are well and strong, and you can walk and run and go about wherever you please, and never have an ache or a pain? And then you have the ‘cheek’ to tell me to be brave, and to bear my pain, and not to cry!”
“O Bobby, you are right!” she said. “I ought not to cry and be a coward, and I am ashamed of it; but something has happened that has disappointed me so dreadfully. However, I’ll try to be brave about it, and remember the lessons I have tried to teach to you. I wish I could help you—poor little Bob! It is awful, awful, to have to suffer all the time as you do; but, at least, you don’t suffer in your mind—do you? You know I always take care of you and make you as comfortable as I can. Tell me that, Bobby, for it comforts me more than anything in the world to think of that.”
“Of course, I know you will take care of me,” said the child; “but is nobody ever going to do anything to make me any better? Am I going to lie and suffer all my life, and never be strong and well like other boys?”
“O Bobby, I don’t know! I don’t know!” said the poor girl, remembering, with a pang, the failure of the only effort it had been in her power to make. “I want to take you to the city to see that great doctor, for I think he might be able to help you. I will do it, if I ever can, but poor sister can do so little to make money, and it takes money to do a thing like that.”
“Yes, I know,” said the boy, with a certain change in his tone. “When I was little, I used to think I’d make money for you. I used to say you were too pretty to work, and that I would work for you. When Mother died and the pension stopped, I thought if you’d work for me a little while, I’d soon be able to work for you, and I would have done it, if I had not had that fall. Oh, why didn’t it kill me at once! I wish it had!”