The little boy lay pale and listless in his small white cot, gazing,
with eyes enlarged by fever, straight before him, with the strange
fixity of illness which seems to see already more than is visible to
living eyes. His mother, sitting at the bottom of the bed, biting her
fingers to keep back a cry, noted how the symptoms deepened on the
ghostly little face; while his father, a strong workman, brushed away
his burning tears.
The day was breaking; a calm, clear, lovely day of June. The light began
to steal into the poor apartment where little Francis, the son of
Jacques and Madeline Legrand, lay very near death's door. He was seven
years old; three weeks ago, a fair-haired, rosy, little boy, as happy as
a bird. But one night, when he came home from school, his head was giddy
and his hands were burning. Ever since he had lain there in his cot.
To-night he did not wander in his mind; but for two days his strange
listlessness had alarmed the doctor. He lay there sad and quiet, as if
at seven years old he was already tired of life; rolling his head upon
the bolster, his thin lips never smiling, his eyes staring at one knew
not what. He would take nothing--neither medicine, syrup, nor beef-tea.
"Is there anything that you would like?" they asked him.
"No," he answered, "nothing."
"This must be remedied," the doctor said. "This torpor is alarming. You
are his parents, and you know him best. Try to discover what will
interest and amuse him." And the doctor went away.
[Illustration: "'THIS MUST BE REMEDIED,' THE DOCTOR SAID."]
To amuse him! True, they knew him well, their little Francis. They knew
how it delighted him, when he was well, to go into the fields, and to
come home, loaded with white hawthorn blossoms, riding on his father's
shoulders. Jacques had already bought him gilded soldiers, figures,
"Chinese shadows," to be shown upon a screen. He placed them on the sick
child's bed, made them dance before his eyes, and, scarcely able to keep
back his tears, strove to make him laugh.
"Look, there is the Broken Bridge. Tra-la-la! And there is a general.
You saw one once at Boulogne Wood, don't you remember? If you drink your
medicine like a good boy, I will buy you a real one, with a cloth tunic
and gold epaulettes. Would you like to have a general?"
"No," said the sick child, his voice dry with fever.
"Would you like a pistol and bullets, or a crossbow?"
"No," replied the little voice, decisively.
And so it was with everything--even with balloons and jumping-jacks.
Still, while the parents looked at each other in despair, the little
voice responded, "No! No! No!"
"But what is there you would like, then, darling?" said his mother.
"Come, whisper to me--to mamma." And she laid her cheek beside him on
the pillow.
The sick boy raised himself in bed, and, throwing out his eager hands
towards some unseen object, cried out, as in command and in entreaty, "I
want _Slap-bang_!"