“ It’s not much, mother,” he said. “It was Baxter Dawes.”
“ Tell me where it hurts you,” she said quietly.
“ I don’t know—my shoulder. Say it was a bicycle accident, mother.”
He could not move his arm. Presently Minnie, the little servant, came upstairs with some tea.
“ Your mother’s nearly frightened me out of my wits—fainted away,” she said.
He felt he could not bear it. His mother nursed him; he told her about it.
“ And now I should have done with them all,” she said quietly.
“ I will, mother.”
She covered him up.
“ And don’t think about it,” she said—“only try to go to sleep. The doctor won’t be here till eleven.”
He had a dislocated shoulder, and the second day acute bronchitis set in. His mother was pale as death now, and very thin. She would sit and look at him, the
