The Southerner. Jr. Thomas Dixon
up to the door. He hurried to help his father with the horse. A sense of elation filled his mind that he was shrewd enough to keep his own secrets. Of course, his mother needn't know what had happened. He was none the worse for it.
In answer to her question of how he had spent the day he vaguely answered:
"In the woods. They're awfully pretty now with the dogwood all in bloom."
He talked incessantly at supper, teasing Sarah about her jolly time at the meeting. Toward the end of the meal he grew silent. A curious sensation began on his back and shoulders and arms. He paid no attention to it at first, but it rapidly grew worse. The more he tried to shake off the feeling the more distinct and sharp it grew. At last every inch of his body seemed to be on fire.
He rose slowly from the table and walked to his stool in the corner wondering—wondering and fearing. He sat in dead silence for half an hour. The perspiration began to stand out on his forehead. It was no use longer to try to fool himself, there was something the matter—something big—something terrible! A fierce and scorching fever was burning him to death. He dared not move. Every muscle quivered with agony when he tried.
The mother's keen eye saw the tears he couldn't keep back.
"What's the matter, Boy?" she tenderly asked while his father was at the stable putting the wagon under the shed.
"I don't know 'm," he choked. "I'm all on fire—I'm burnin' up——"
She touched his forehead and slipped her arm around his shoulders.
He screamed with pain.
The mother looked into his face with a sudden start.
"Why, what on earth, child? What have you been doing to-day?"
He hesitated and tried to be brave, but it was no use. He felt that he would drop dead the next moment unless relief came. He buried his face in her lap and sobbed his bitter confession.
"Do you think I'm going to die?" he asked.
She smiled:
"No, my Boy, you're only sunburned. How long were you naked in the sun?"
"From 'bout ten o'clock till nearly sundown——"
He moved again and screamed with agony.
The mother tenderly undressed the little, red, swollen body. The rough clothes had stuck to the blistered skin in one place and the pain was so frightful he nearly fainted before they were finally removed.
For two days and nights she never left his side, holding his hand to give him courage when he was compelled to move. Almost his entire body, inch by inch, was blistered. She covered it with cream and allowed only two greased linen cloths to touch him.
On the second day as he lay panting for breath and holding her hand with feverish grasp he looked into her pensive grey eyes through his own bleared and bloodshot with pain and said softly:
"I'm sorry, Ma."
She pressed his hand:
"It's all right, my Boy; your mother loves you."
"I'm not sorry for the pain," he gasped. "What hurts me worse is that you're so sweet to me!"
The dark face bent and kissed his trembling lips:
"It's all for the best. You couldn't have understood the preacher Sunday when he took the text: 'The stars in their courses fought against Sisera.' You learned it for yourself the only way we really learn anything. God's in the wind and rain, the sun, the storm. All nature works with him. You can easily fool your mother. It's not what you seem to others; it's what you are that counts. God sees and knows. You see and know in your little heart. I want you to be a great man—only a good man can ever be great."
And so for an hour she poured into his heart her faith in God and His glory until He became the one power fixed forever in the child's imagination.
VII
The Boy lost his skin but grew another and incidentally absorbed some ideas he never forgot.
On the day he was able to put on his clothes, it poured down rain and work in the fields was impossible. A sense of delicious joy filled him. He worked because he had to, not because he liked it. He was too proud to shirk, too brave to cry when every nerve and muscle of his little body ached with mortal weariness, but he hated it.
The sun rose bright and warm and shone clear in the Southern sky next morning before he was called. He climbed down the ladder from his loft wondering what marvellous thing had happened that he should be sleeping with the sun already high in the heavens.
"What's the matter, Ma?" he asked anxiously. "Why didn't you call me?"
"It's too wet to plow. Your father's going to chop wood in the clearing. He wanted you to pile brush after him, but I asked him to let you off to go fishing for me."
He ate breakfast with his heart beating a tattoo, rushed into the garden, dug a gourd full of worms, drew his long cane rod from the eaves of the cabin, and with old Boney trotting at his heels was soon on his way to a deep pool in the bend of the creek.
Fishing for her! His mother understood. He wondered why he had ever been fool enough to disobey her that Sunday. He could die for her without a moment's hesitation.
It was glorious to have this marvellous day of spring all his own. The birds were singing on every field and hedge. The trees flashed their polished new leaves. The sweet languor of the South was in the air and he drew it in with deep breaths that sent the joy of life tingling through every vein.
Four joyous hours flew on tireless wings. He had caught five catfish and a big eel—more than enough for a good meal for the whole family.
He held them up proudly. How his mother's eyes would sparkle! He could see Sarah's admiring gaze and hear his father's good-natured approval.
He had just struck the path for home when the forlorn figure of a rough bearded man came limping to meet him.
He stepped aside in the grass to let him pass. But the man stopped and gazed at the fish.
"My, my, Sonny, but you've got a fine string there!" he exclaimed.
"Pretty good for one day," the Boy proudly answered.
"An' just ter think I ain't had nothin' ter eat in 'most two days."
"Don't you live nowhere?" the youngster asked in surprise.
"I used ter have a home afore the war, but my folks thought I wuz dead an' moved away. I'm tryin' ter find 'em. Hit's a hard job with a Britisher's bullet still a-pinchin' me in the leg."
"Did you fight with General Washington?"
"Lordy, no, I ain't that old, ef I do look like a scarecrow. No, I fit under Old Hickory at New Orleans. I tell ye, Sonny, them Britishers burnt out Washington fur us but we give 'em a taste o' fire at New Orleans they ain't goin' ter fergit."
"Did we lick 'em good?"
"Boy, ye ain't never heard tell er sich a scrimmage—we thrashed 'em till they warn't no fight in 'em, an' they scrambled back aboard them ships an' skeddaddled home. Britishers can't fight nohow. We've licked 'em twice an' we kin lick 'em agin. But the old soldier that does the fightin'—everybody fergits him!"
The Boy looked longingly at his string of fish for a moment with the pride of his heart, and then held up his treasure.
"You can have my fish if ye want 'em; they'll make you a nice supper."
The old soldier stroked the tangled hair and took his string of fish.
"You're a fine boy! I won't fergit you, Sonny!"
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