CHAPTER VIII.
ALECK GOES HOME.
Winter snow gave place to the spring flowers, and now Aleck can go into the yard, with our sturdy Frankie for a support. The boys are together nearly all the time. Aleck, with his gentle ways, to soften the more boyish nature of our robust little hero, and Frankie, with his merry heart, to brighten the life of his suffering friend.
It was Aleck who helped him out of trouble; who urged him to be gentle and forgiving, even to Ben Field; to obey his mother; and to try in every way to please Jesus. It was Aleck who studied the hard lesson first and then helped him, and who sharpened all the slate-pencils; who made the tops and kites and buzz-wheels, and, in short, shared in all of Frankie’s play and work.
But as the summer heat came on, the busy hands grew strangely idle. Mrs. Western noticed the change and tried at first by giving simple tonics, then by employing a physician, to restore his strength, but it was in vain. He would lie for hours on a couch before the open window, dreamily watching the soft summer sky, and listening to the singing of the birds.
He seldom roused from this dreamy state, excepting to listen to the reading of the Bible, or to his favorite hymn, “My Ain Countree.” Two of the verses he would say over and over to himself.
“The earth is flecked wi’ flowers, mony tinted, fresh an’ gay,
The birdies warble blithely, for my Father made them sae;
But these sights an’ these sounds wi’ as naething be to me,
When I hear the angels singin’ in my Ain Countree.