The Path of the King

CHAPTER 13. THE LAST STAGE-2

The boy did not guess these thoughts. He pulled up a stool and sat very close to the bed, holding his mother's frail wrist in a sunburnt hand so big that it might have been that of a lad half-way through his teens. He had learned in the woods to be neat and precise in his ways, and his movements, for all his gawky look, were as soft as a panther's.

“ Like me to tell you a story?” he asked. “What about Uncle Mord's tale of Dan'l Boone at the Blue Licks Battle?”

There was no response, so he tried again.

“ Or read a piece? It was the Bible last time, but the words is mighty difficult. Besides you don't need it that much now. You're gettin' better.... Let's hear about the ol' Pilgrim.”

He found a squat duodecimo in the trunk, and shifted the skin curtain from one of the window holes to g