Stephen O'Mara opened his eyes and gazed
feebly but very understandingly into the eyes of Fat Joe, who was
watching at that moment.
Joe tried to hush him, but he would talk a little.
"I know," he pronounced each word with calculated effort. "I have been
very sick, and I must not waste my strength. But I have to be clear,
first, on one point. Have I dreamed it, Joe, or--or did she bring me
home?"
With his voice alone, when all else seemed failing, Joe had kept his
friend alive. The doctor believed it; Miss Sarah knew it to be so.
And first of all Joe had to voice his thankfulness, for it was an
explosive thing.
"Didn't I tell her so?" he demanded in his whining tenor. "Didn't I
say so, all along? And I let that doctor worry _me_, just because he's
got a diploma in a frame, hanging on his wall!"
Then he answered Steve's question.
"She found you," he said. "She brought you home."
A long time the sick man lay and pondered. And finally he found it
possible to smile.
"I have not cared whether I lived or died," he said in little more than
a whisper. "All along I have seemed to know how near I was--to going
across; and I have been near to quitting--at times. For I was happier
than I'd ever dared let myself be, before--and then, with the first
shot that dropped Big Louie, I knew----" He shook his head, still
smiling vaguely.
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