"What is it? Where am I?" he asked, and Daisy replied: "You are here in my room--on my bed; and you've got the fever, and I'm

going to take care of you, and I'm so glad. Not glad you have the

fever," she added, as she met his look of wonder, "but glad I can repay

in part all you did for me, you dear, noble Tom! And you are not to

talk," and she laid her small hand on his mouth as she saw him about to

speak. "I am strong enough; the doctor says so, and I'd do it if he

didn't, for you are the best, the truest friend I have."

She was rubbing his hot, feverish hands, and though the touch of her

cool, soft fingers was so delicious, poor Tom thought of the big

freckles so obnoxious to the little lady, and, drawing his hands from

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her grasp, hid them beneath the clothes. Gladly, too, would he have

covered his face and hair from her sight, but this he could not do and

breathe, but he begged her to leave him and send someone in her place.

But Daisy would not listen to him.

He had nursed her day and night, she said, and she should stay with him,

and she did, through three weeks, when Tom's fever ran higher than hers

had done, because there was more for it to feed upon, and when Tom in

his ravings talked of things which made her heart ache with a new and

different pain from that already there.

At first there were low whisperings and incoherent mutterings, and when

Daisy asked him to whom he was talking he answered her: "To that other one over in the corner. Don't you see him? He is waiting

for me till the fever eats me up. There's a lot of me to eat, I'm so big

and awkward, overgrown--that's what Daisy said. You know Daisy, don't

you? a dainty little creature, with such delicacy of sight and touch!

She doesn't like red hair; she said so when we thought the man in the

corner was waiting for her, and she doesn't like my freckled face and

hands--big hands, she said they were, and yet how they have worked like

horses for her! Oh, Daisy! Daisy! I have loved her ever since she was a

child, and I drew her to school on my sled and cut her doll's head off

to tease her. Take me quick, please, out of her sight, where my freckled

face won't offend her."

He was talking now to that other one, the man in the corner, who, like

some grim sentinel, stood there day and night, while Daisy kept her

tireless watch and Tom talked on and on--never to her--but always to the

other one, the man in the corner, whom he begged to take him away.




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