"I'm sowwy. An' I fought if I was deaded too, like Berta, I could go an' tell her I never meaned to be gweedy. An' I wouldn't eat my bweakfust, nor my dinner, nor nothing—and at last my tummy shut, and I didn't want nuffing more."
The Mother-Superior and the Colonel Commanding exchanged a glance over the little round head before the man's voice answered the child.
"That wouldn't have made Bertha happy. She might have thought you a little coward for running away and leaving your mother and all the other ladies behind, shut up in Gueldersdorp. For an officer and a gentleman must go on living and fighting while he has anything left to fight for, Hammy. Remember that."
"Yes, Mister Colonel...." The drowsy eyes closed, the little head nodded off into slumber against the kind, strong shoulder. The Mother-Superior wheeled the perambulator near, and the Colonel, rising, laid the now soundly-sleeping boy back upon his cushions.
"What mysteries children are!" he said, as the Mother replaced the light covering, screening the sleeping face with tender, careful hands from sun and flies. "Imagine remorse for an act of selfishness leading a boy of six to such a determination—and a normal, healthy boy, if ever I met one."
"He has been living for some time under abnormal conditions," the Mother said softly, looking at the quiet rise and fall of the light shawl covering. "He will take a turn for the better now."
"And forget his trouble and its cause." The Chief's observant glance had lighted on Rhinoceros, lying upside down in a little clump of flowering sword-grass, into which he had been whisked as the Mother shook out the little shawl. "I think," he said, and pocketed the horned one, "that this gentleman had better go into the fire."
"Perhaps. And yet it would be a continual reminder to conquer selfishness in great as in little things." She smiled, meeting the keen hazel eyes with her great pure grey ones.
"If you think so, I will leave it."
"I will not take the responsibility of advising you to. You have already shown more tact than I can lay claim to in dealing with children. And that has been the business of the greater part of my life, remember."