"He is a hero—!"
The President sat with the sick man in a pregnant silence, while the color came back into the face of the man on the bed. At last there came a smile. When he was satisfied that his work was done, the President rose. For a moment his hand touched Joseph's brow as the sculptor does his clay, with that touch which is a caress.
"And now, friend Joseph, good-bye."
After he had gone, Joseph looked at the toy the President had left. He put it to his lips. He held it to his meagre chest. And thus they lay, the man and the toy, until the exultation on Joseph's face softened into perfect peace.
"Toys—toys—" So his thoughts sang themselves. "Toys. Nothing else is real. Toys of tenderness—toys of mirth—toys that sail a man back to childhood—toys that sweep a man into manhood—and beyond." He held the color-bearer passionately close. "A hero!" he said. "Thank God for the man who knows our hearts. The world is his toy-shop and men and women are his toys. He can use everybody—it makes no difference how ugly a toy may be. He loves them even when they are naughty—just like a little girl when she spanks her dolly." Joseph smiled at his own thoughts with tenderness.... "Just like the Christ who suffers us to come to Him."
"I wonder ... is it because he loves people or because he plays with them that he is so far above them?—I believe he is very far off—looking on. He is really neither smiling nor looking sad—just seeing."
The room was quiet. The pain had ceased. Joseph clasped his toy and slept.
Into the damp night air drifted suddenly a wave of sound. It startled Mrs. Schotz, who sat at work by the lamp, watching late into the night. Even as she lifted her head to listen it swelled into a distant growl of thunder, threatening, sullen. A startled voice came from her husband's bed asking what the noise might be. Before she had time to answer, the door burst open, and their neighbor, the cobbler's wife, ran into the shop.
"Have you heard," she shrieked—"have you heard? They have killed him, the good President!" With the last word she was out of the door.