Part 15 (2/2)

Yet as he drifted in the shadowy reaches that lie between life and death it is doubtful whether he suffered. The glow of fever through his drowsiness was rather a grateful warmth, blunted of all responsible thinking, than a recognized affliction, and the realization of the presence near him enveloped him with a languorous contentment.

The sick man could turn his head on his pillow and gaze upward into cool and deep recesses of green where the sun s.h.i.+fted and sifted golden patches of light, and where through branch and twig the stir of summer crooned a restful lullaby. Often a squirrel on a low limb clasped its forepaws on a burgher-fat stomach, and gazed impudently down, chattering excitedly at the invalid. From its hanging nest, with brilliant flashes of orange and jet, a Baltimore oriole came and went about its housekeeping affairs.

As half-consciously and dreamily he gazed up, between sleeping and waking, the life of the tree became for him that of a world in miniature.

But when he heard the door guardedly open and close, he would turn his gaze from that direction as from a minor to a major delight--for then he knew that on the other side of the bed would be the face of Dorothy Harper. ”Right smart's goin' ter _dee_pend on how hard he fights hisself,” Uncle Jase told Dorothy one day as he took up his hat and saddle-bags. ”I reckon ef he feels sartin he's got enough ter live fer--he kin kinderly holp nature along right lavish.”

That same day Maggard opened his eyes while the girl was sitting by his bedside.

His smile was less dazzling out of a thin, white face, than it had been through the tan of health, but such as it was he flashed it on her gallantly.

”I don't hone fer nothin' else ter look at--when you're hyar,” he a.s.sured her. ”But when you _hain't_ hyar I loves ter look at ther old tree.”

”Ther old tree,” she replied after him, half guiltily; ”I've been so worrited, I'd nigh fergot hit.”

His smile altered to a steady-eyed seriousness in which, too, she recognized the intangible quality that made him seem to her different from all the other men she had known.

He had been born and lived much as had the men about him. He had been chained to the same hard and dour materialism as they, yet for him life had another essence and dimension, because he had been born with a soul capable of dreams.

”Thet fust night--when I lay a-waitin' fer ye ter come back--an'

mis...o...b..in' whether I'd last thet long,” he told her almost under his breath, ”seemed like ter me thet old tree war kinderly a-safeguardin'

me.”

She bent closer and her lips trembled.

”Mebby hit did safeguard ye, Cal,” she whispered. ”But I prayed fer ye thet night--I prayed hard fer ye.”

The man closed his eyes and his features grew deeply sober.

”I'd love ter know ther pint-blank truth,” he said next. ”Am I a-goin'

ter live or die?”

She struggled with the catch in her breath and hesitated so long with her hands clenched convulsively together in her lap that he, still lying with lids closed, construed her reticence into a death sentence and spoke again himself.

”Afore I come over hyar,” he said, quietly, ”I reckon hit wouldn't hev made no great differ ter me nuther way.”

”Ye've got a chanst, Cal, and Uncle Jase 'lows,” she bent closer and now she could command her voice, ”thet ef ye wills ter live ... survigrous strong enough--yore chanst is a better one ... then ef ye ... jist don't keer.”

His eyes opened and his lips smiled dubiously.

”I sometimes lays hyar wonderin' whether I truly does keer or not.”

”What does ye mean, Cal?”

He paused and lay breathing as though hardly ready to face so vital an issue, then he explained:

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