Gordon Keith | Page 6

or uttering a sound. She came in
and closed the door gently behind her, and then walked softly over to
the side of the bed and looked down at him with kind eyes. She was not
exactly pretty, but to Gordon she appeared beautiful, and he knew that
she was a friend. Suddenly she dropped down on her knees beside him
and put her arm over him caressingly.
"I am Norman's mother," she said, "and I have come to look after you
and to take you home with me if they will let me have you." She
stooped over and kissed him.
The boy put up his pinched face and kissed her.
"I will go," he said in his weak voice.
She kissed him again, and smiled down at him with moist eyes, and
talked to him in tender tones, stroking his hair and telling him of
Norman's sorrow for the trouble, of her own unhappiness, and of her
regret that the doctors would not let him be moved. When she left, it
was with a promise that she would come back again and see him; and
Gordon knew that he had a friend in England of his own kind, and a
truth somehow had slipped into his heart which set at odds many
opinions which he had thought principles. He had never thought to feel
kindly toward a Yankee.
When Gordon was able to be out again, his father wished him to go and

thank his former foe who had rescued him. But it was too hard an
ordeal for the boy to face. Even the memory of Mrs. Wentworth could
not reconcile him to this.
"You don't know how hard it is, father," he said, with that assurance
with which boyhood always draws a line between itself and the rest of
the world. "Did you ever have to ask pardon of one who had fought
you?"
General Keith's face wore a singular expression. Suddenly he felt a
curious sensation in a spot in his right side, and he was standing in a
dewy glade in a piece of woodland on a Spring morning, looking at a
slim, serious young man standing very straight and still a few paces off,
with a pistol gripped in his hand, and, queerly enough, his name, too,
was Norman Wentworth. But he was not thinking of him. He was
thinking of a tall girl with calm blue eyes, whom he had walked with
the day before, and who had sent him away dazed and half maddened.
Then some one a little to one side spoke a few words and began to
count, "One, two--" There was a simultaneous report of two pistols,
two little puffs of smoke, and when the smoke had cleared away, the
other man with the pistol was sinking slowly to the ground, and he
himself was tottering into the arms of the man nearest him.
He came back to the present with a gasp.
"My son," he said gravely, "I once was called on and failed. I have
regretted it all my life, though happily the consequences were not as
fatal as I had at one time apprehended. If every generation did not
improve on the follies and weaknesses of those that have gone before,
there would be no advance in the world. I want you to be wiser and
stronger than I."
Gordon's chance of revenge came sooner than he expected. Not long
after he got out of doors again he was on his way down to the lake,
where he was learning to swim, when a number of boys whom he
passed began to hoot at him. In their midst was Ferdy Wickersham, the
boy who had crossed the ocean with him. He was setting the others on.
The cry that came to Gordon was: "Nigger-driver! Nigger-driver!"

Sometimes Fortune, Chance, or whatever may be the deity of fortuitous
occurrence, places our weapons right to hand. What would David have
done had there not been a stony brook between him and Goliath that
day? Just as Gordon with burning face turned to defy his deriders, a
pile of small stones lay at his feet. It looked like Providence. He could
not row a boat, but he could fling a stone like young David. In a
moment he was sending stones up the hill with such rapidity that the
group above him were thrown into confusion.
Then Gordon fell into an error of more noted generals. Seizing a supply
of missiles, he charged straight up the hill. Though the group had
broken at the sudden assault, by the time he reached the hill-top they
had rallied, and while he was out of ammunition they made a charge on
him. Wheeling, he went down the hill like the wind, while his pursuers