Little By Little | Page 9

There were the two sulkies of the doctors, and a crowd of people at the gate, to enable him to realize the dreadful calamity which had overtaken him. The panting horse stopped before the door, and Paul's limbs almost failed him as he dragged himself into the house.
"O Paul," sobbed his mother, who met him at the door, "I thought you would never come. I'm afraid you won't have a father a great while longer."
"Forgive me, mother, for what I did," cried Paul.
"I do forgive you, my son; but come, your poor father wants to see you very much."
His mother took him by the hand, and led him into the chamber where his father lay. He was shocked by the change which a few short hours had produced, and he needed not the skill of the physicians to assure him that Mr. Duncan had but a short time to live.
"Paul," said his father, faintly, "I shall soon be no more, and I leave your mother and your brothers and sisters to your care. Take good care of them, Paul, for they will soon have no one else to help them. Be a good boy, and be an honest man, and everything will go well with you. Be true to your God and true to yourself, and then all the world cannot harm you. May God keep you in the path of duty as long as you live."
Mr. Duncan closed his eyes with an audible sigh, and Paul burst into tears, realizing that he was about to lose the kindest and best of fathers.
"Don't cry, my boy," said the sufferer; "be a man, and in a little while the struggle will be over with me."
The whole family were gathered round the bed, and Mr. Duncan gave them his blessing, for the doctors assured him his hour was at hand. We will not dwell upon the painful scene. In an hour all was still in that room save the sobs of the bereaved widow, who stood gazing in agony upon the silent form which she had seen go out from her that morning in the full vigor of health and strength. The angel of death was there, and had done his work.
Paul was stupefied by the suddenness of the shock, and all the currents of his existence seemed to stop in their flow. He spent the afternoon in his chamber, trying to understand the nature of his situation. He had dried his tears, but the deeper grief had gone in upon his heart. He spent a wakeful night in thinking of the past, and in endeavoring to make himself believe that his father was dead. All that he had ever done for him, all that he had ever said to him, came up before him with a vividness that made them seem like realities.
In this condition he moved about the house till after the funeral, mechanically executing such duties as he was required to perform; but everything was so unnatural to him that he could hardly persuade himself of the reality of his being. The death of his father was an epoch in his existence, a turning point in his career, and the wheels of time, the current of events, stopped, soon to resume their course in a different direction.
When the last rites of love and respect had been paid to the remains of his father, Paul roused himself from his stupor, and began to examine the future. At the death bed of his parent he had received a solemn charge, and he carefully reviewed the words, and recalled the expression with which it had been committed to him. His mother and his brothers and sisters had been given into his care, and he felt the responsibility of the position he had accepted. He determined, to the best of his ability, to discharge his duty to them; but he was sorely troubled to think of some way by which he could earn money enough to support them, for he had put a literal construction upon the dying words of his father.
CHAPTER IV.
PAUL BECOMES THE HEAD OF THE FAMILY.
For a week after the funeral Paul racked his brain in devising expedients to supply the place of his father in a pecuniary point of view, but without success. If he went into a store, or obtained such a place as a boy can fill, it would pay him only two or three dollars a week, and this would be scarcely anything towards the support of the family, for his father had generally earned twelve dollars a week during the greater portion of the year. He wanted to do something better. He did not expect to make so much as his father had made, but was determined, if possible, to earn at least half as