“Nothing alarming,” replied Clinton; “I am a little sick at my stomach—that is all.”
“How long have you been so?” inquired his mother.
“Only a little while,” was the reply. “I haven’t felt very smart for an hour or two, but just as I got home I began to grow worse, and have been vomiting.”
“Have you eaten any thing this afternoon?” inquired Mr. Davenport.
“No, sir,” replied Clinton, “nothing since dinner.”
“I am afraid he has worked too hard lately,” remarked Mrs. Davenport to her husband. “You have kept him at it pretty steadily for a week past, and you know he isn’t so rugged as many boys are. I wouldn’t allow him to work so hard again.”
“He has been working pretty hard, I know,” observed Mr. Davenport; “but he has never complained before, and I did not suppose he suffered from it. I don’t think this is anything serious, wife—he needs a little physic, perhaps, or something of that sort, to regulate his system.”
While this conversation was taking place, Clinton sat in the rocking-chair, leaning his head upon his hand. Little Annie stood by his side, silent and sad, her large, loving eyes looking up wonderingly at her sick brother. But he did not notice her. He was thinking very earnestly of something else. His conscience was busily at work, reproaching him for his conduct during the afternoon. “You disobeyed your father,” it plainly said, “by going over to the Falls, when he told you to come right home. You deceived him, after you got home, by not giving the true reason for your long absence. You made yourself sick by smoking that cigar, and now you sit still and hear your parents, in their sympathy and solicitude, attribute your illness to hard work. O Clinton, you have not only done very wrong, but you have done it very meanly, too! No wonder you cover up your face, and dare not meet the eye of your parents.”
Thus was conscience talking. At first, Clinton almost resolved to confess the whole story of his wrong-doings. “Do it,” said conscience; but shame whispered, “no, don’t expose yourself—you will soon feel better, and the whole affair will be forgotten in a day or two.” The longer he hesitated, between these two advisers, the less inclined did he feel to make the confession. His father soon went out, to put up the horse, and his mother set about preparing him a bowl of thoroughwort tea—her favorite medicine, in all common forms of sickness. Clinton already began to feel much better, and on the whole he thought he would say nothing about the adventures of the afternoon. When his mother brought him the herb tea, he drank it down as fast as possible, but he could not help making a wry face over it, for it was not very palatable to his taste. His mother thought he had better go to bed early, and without eating any supper, and he complied with her wishes. Just as he was beginning to doze, a gentle, timid voice awakened him, saying,
“Clinty, you won’t be sick, will you?”