"Thank--you."
William laughed a low chuckle. "Don't bother about thanks. Would you like
some water?"
A tall figure joined William, awkwardly.
"Hello, Evan!"
"How is he, Bill?"
"He's awake to-day."
"That's good. Anything I can do?"
"No, I guess not. All he needs is somethin' to eat."
"I jest brought a chicken up, an' some jell an' things the women sent.
I'll stay with him till twelve, then Folsom will come in."
Thereafter he lay hearing the robins laugh and the orioles whistle, and
then the frogs and katydids at night. These men with greasy vests and
unkempt beards came in every day. They bathed him, and helped him to and
from the bed. They helped to dress him and move him to the window, where
he could look out on the blessed green of the grass.
O God, it was so beautiful! It was a lover's joy only to live, to look
into these radiant vistas again. A cat-bird was singing in the
currant-hedge. A robin was hopping across the lawn. The voices of the
children sounded soft and jocund across the road. And the
sunshine--"Beloved Christ, Thy sunshine falling upon my feet!" His soul
ached with the joy of it, and when his wife came in she found him sobbing
like a child.
They seemed never to weary in his service. They lifted him about, and
talked to him in loud and hearty voices which roused him like fresh winds
from free spaces.
He heard the women busy with things in the kitchen. He often saw them
loaded with things to eat passing his window, and often his wife came in
and knelt down at his bed.
"Oh, Robert, they're so good! They feed us like God's ravens."
One day, as he sat at the window fully dressed for the fourth of fifth
time, William McTurg came up the walk.
"Well, Robert, how are ye to-day?"
"First rate, William," he smiled. "I believe I can walk out a little if
you'll help me."
"All right, sir."
And he went forth leaning on William's arm, a piteous wraith of a man.
On every side the golden June sunshine fell, filling the valley from
purple brim to purple brim. Down over the hill to the west the light
poured, tangled and glowing in the plum and cherry trees, leaving the
glistening grass spraying through the elms, and flinging streamers of
pink across the shaven green slopes where the cattle fed.
On every side he saw kindly faces and heard hearty voices: "Good day,
Robert. Glad to see you out again." It thrilled him to hear them call him
by his first name.
His heart swelled till he could hardly breathe. The passion of living
came back upon him, shaking, uplifting him. His pallid lips moved. His
face was turned to the sky.
"O God, let me live! It is so beautiful! O God, give me strength again!
Keep me in the light of the sun! Let me see the green grass come and go!"
He turned to William with trembling lips, trying to speak:
"Oh, I understand you now. I know you all now."
But William did not understand him.
"There! there!" he said, soothingly. "I guess you're gettin' tired." He
led Robert back and put him to bed.
"I'd know but we was a little brash about goin' out," William said to
him, as Robert lay there smiling up at him.
"Oh, I'm all right now," the sick man said.
"Matie," the alien cried, when William had gone, "we know our neighbors
now, don't we? We never can hate or ridicule them again."
"Yes, Robert. They never will be caricatures again--to me."