There was a hard time before Jabez. Rheumatic fever was among the least of the troubles suggested as possible in his case by his grandfather, when he came shivering home from the mill-pond that night. But that was happily averted by the prompt and skilful treatment of Dr Everett, after just enough of suffering to make Jabez ever for the future rather more sympathetic with the aches and pains of his grandfather.
Jabez, however, was not to escape his share of discipline; and his trouble came, as most people’s troubles seem to come, in the way which is hardest to bear. He did not have “the long spell of rheumatism” which his grandfather had predicted, but he had what was worse. Inflammation settled in the lad’s eyes, and for a time he suffered great pain. He could have borne the pain patiently, even cheerfully. That which tried his courage and brought him low was the darkness—the darkness and the horrible doubt whether he was ever to see the light again.
He need not have suffered from this fear. Dr Everett never really feared blindness for him, and always spoke cheerfully to him about soon being well again.
“But that is the way the doctors have of letting a fellow down easy,” thought Jabez, taking less comfort than he might have done from the doctor’s words.
No visitors were admitted except those whom the doctor allowed to come, and every day seemed like a week to Jabez, and the nights were longer still. In the daytime he could hear his grandmother moving about the rooms, and the voices of chance comers and goers to the house. At night there was no sound but the rush of the wind, or the barking of his dog Buff outside; and within the ceaseless tick-tack of the tall clock in the corner, which said to him all manner of solemn things which he could not forget.
His grandmother made him nice things to eat, and his grandfather sat beside him a little while many times a day, and both were as good to him as good could be. His grandfather was faithful as well as kind, and reminded him of past misdeeds—the sins of his youth, he called them—and warned him of worse things that were in store for him unless he turned from his evil ways. It was “hitting a fellow when he was down,” Jabez thought, but he listened in silence to all he had to say. Indeed, through all these dark days he lay without a word, fighting his battle with his fears and his rebellious murmurs alone, asking help from no one.
Fidelia came in to see him for a minute or two every night on her way home from school, and gave him a summary of school work and school events generally, and enlarged more than would have been wise at another time on the amusing incidents of the day, for the sake of bringing a smile to his sober face. But even Fidelia got few words from him, and it was a good while before she came to see how miserable the poor fellow was in his solitude; and even when she saw it she did not know how to help him.
“What are you thinking about, Jabez?” said she one night, when she had scarcely got from him even the usual response. Seeing the look on his face, she did not wait for an answer. “To-morrow is Saturday. I shall bring down the books and have school here, if doctor will let me. Or shall I bring Eunice? Yes, if it is a fine day I will bring Eunice. She has wanted to come for ever so long, but she has waited till she should be able to have a good long visit with you. If any one can do you good, Eunice can,” added Fidelia, laughing, though, seeing Jabez’s sober face, she did not feel much like it.
“I shall be glad to have Miss Eunice come and see me,” said Jabez gravely.
A good while after that, Jabez told Fidelia what he had been thinking about that afternoon, and indeed what he had been thinking about most of the time during these sorrowful nights and days.