"Yes, papa. I have promised that poor, sick, helpless little fellow all the comfort I can give him. I have promised to do by him as I should want him to do by me if I were Jamie Strong, and he was Robert Shaftsbury."
Mr. Shaftsbury was silenced. This, indeed, was the rule of living he had taught. Should he venture to interfere with its observance?
So my little gentleman had his way. He took every precaution which his mother's anxiety suggested, such as going home to lunch before he went to the little cottage where the sick boy lay and longed for him. But he went regularly. And no matter how wild Jamie might be, his presence would bring calmness. The dim eyes would kindle; the poor, parched lips would smile; and Mrs. Strong said the visit did Jamie more good than his medicines.
At school the boys looked upon my little gentleman with a sort of wondering reverence. They all knew of his daily visits to the fever-haunted place, which they themselves shunned, and they marvelled at his courage. This was the boy they had fancied to be lacking in manliness, because he was slight and fair,—because he was carefully dressed and tenderly nurtured! They said nothing; but in a hundred subtile ways they showed their changed estimate.
The days went on, and with them Jamie Strong's life went toward its end. The doom of his house had come upon him; and love and prayers and watching were all, it seemed, of none avail. One night the fever reached its crisis, and the doctor, who watched him through it, knew that the end was near. Jamie knew it, also. When the morning dawned he whispered faintly to his mother,—
"I shall never see another morning; but oh, if I can only live till night, and see my little gentleman!"
She proposed to send for him; but that was not what the boy wished.
"No," he said, feebly, "I want to see him coming in, at the old time, with some flowers in his hand, 'and make a sunshine in a shady place.' Somebody said that, mother, I forget who; I forget every thing now; but that's what he does; he makes a sunshine in this shady place."