The Complete Works of James Whitcomb Riley, vol 10 | Page 9

bidding the servant not to leave her for an instant,
I hurried for the help so badly needed. This time the doctor was long
delayed, although he joined me with all possible haste, and with all
speed accompanied me back to the unhappy home. Entering the door,
our ears were greeted with a shriek that came piercing down the hall till
the very echoes shuddered as with fear. It was the patient's voice
shrilling from the sleeper's room up stairs:--"O God! My boy! my boy!
I want my boy, and he will not waken for me!" An instant later we were
both upon the scene.
The woman in her frenzy had broken from the servant to find her son.
And she had found him.
She had wound her arms about him, and had dragged his still sleeping
form upon the floor. He would not waken, even though she gripped him
to her heart and shrieked her very soul out in his ears. He would not
waken. The face, though whiter than her own, betokened only utter rest
and peace. We drew her, limp and voiceless, from his side. "We are too
late," the doctor whispered, lifting with his finger one of the closed lids,
and letting it drop to again.--"See here!" He had been feeling at the
wrist; and, as he spoke, he slipped the sleeve up, bared the sleeper's arm.
From the wrist to elbow it was livid purple, and pitted and scarred with
minute wounds--some scarcely scaled as yet with clotted blood.
"In heaven's name, what does it all mean?" I asked.
"Morphine," said the doctor, "and the hypodermic. And here," he
exclaimed, lifting the other hand--"here is a folded card with your name
at the top."

I snatched it from him, and I read, written in faint but rounded
characters:
"I like to hear your voice. It sounds kind. It is like a far-off tune. To
drop asleep, though, as I am doing now, is sweeter music--but read
on.--I have taken something to make me sleep, and by mistake I have
taken too much; but you will read right on. Now, mind you, this is not
suicide, as God listens to the whisper of this pencil as I write! I did it
by mistake. For years and years I have taken the same thing. This time I
took too much-- much more than I meant to--but I am glad. This is the
second favor I would ask: Go to my employers to-morrow, show them
this handwriting, and say I know for my sake they will take charge of
my affairs and administer all my estate in the best way suited to my
mother's needs. Good-by, my friend--I can only say 'good night' to you
when I shall take your hand an instant later and turn away forever."
Through tears I read it all, and ending with his name in full, I turned
and looked down on the face of this man that I had learned to love, and
the full measure of his needed rest was with him; and the rainy day that
glowered and drabbled at the eastern window of the room was as
drearily stared back at by a hopeless woman's dull demented eyes.

A NEST-EGG
But a few miles from the city here, and on the sloping banks of the
stream noted more for its plenitude of "chubs" and "shiners" than the
gamier two- and four-pound bass for which, in season, so many
credulous anglers flock and lie in wait, stands a country residence, so
convenient to the stream, and so inviting in its pleasant exterior and
comfortable surroundings--barn, dairy, and spring- house--that the
weary, sunburned, and disheartened fisherman, out from the dusty town
for a day of recreation, is often wont to seek its hospitality.
The house in style of architecture is something of a departure from the
typical farmhouse, being designed and fashioned with no regard to
symmetry or proportion, but rather, as is suggested, built to conform to
the matter-of-fact and most sensible ideas of its owner, who, if it
pleased him, would have small windows where large ones ought to be,
and vice versa, whether they balanced properly to the eye or not. And
chimneys--he would have as many as he wanted, and no two alike, in
either height or size. And if he wanted the front of the house turned

from all possible view, as though abashed at any chance of public
scrutiny, why, that was his affair and not the public's; and, with like
perversity, if he chose to thrust his kitchen under the public's very nose,
what should the generally fagged-out, half-famished representative of
that dignified public do but reel in his dead minnow, shoulder his
fishing-rod, clamber over the back fence of the old farmhouse and
inquire