Savannah courier. (Savannah, Tenn.) 1885-1979, 1895-06-13
CLOWN AND CHILD.
n Tender Story of o Sick Room
Beautifully Tod.

grown large through fever, looked
straight before him, always with the
strange fixity of the sick who already
perceive what the living do not see.
Tho mother, at the foot OF the bed,
torn by suffering and wringing her
hands to keep herself from CRYING, anx-
iously followed the progress of the dis
case on the poor, emaciated face of the
little being. The father, an honest
workman, kept back the tears which
burned his cyelids
The juno day broke clear and mild.
and lighted up the narrow room in the
street of the Abbesses where little
Francois, tho child of Jacques and
Madeleine Legrand, lay dying. lIc
was seven years old, and was very fair,
very rosy, vesy lively. Not three
weeks ago he was gay as sparrow;
but q fever had seized him, and they
had brought him homo one evening
from the public school with his head
heavy and his hands yer y hot. From
that time he had been here in this bed,
and sometimes in his dclirium when
he looked at his we'll blackened shoes,
which his father had placed in cor
ner on board, he said:
"You can throw them away now,
little Francois shoesl Little Francois
will not put them on any more! Little
Francois will not go to school any more
never, nevcr!"
Then the father cried out and said:
wilt thou be still" And the mother.
very pale, buried her blonde head on
his pillow, SO that little Francois could
not hear her weep.
This night the child had been de-
lirious, but for the two days past the
doctor had been uneasy over an odd
sort of prostration that had. seized
him; it was as If in seven years he al
ready felt the wcariness OF life. He
was tired, silent, sad, and tossed his
little head about on the bolster. lie
had no longer q smile on his poor,
thin lips, and with haggard eye he
seemed to look at, they knew not what,
something beyond them-vcry far off.
I'm Heaven, perhaps, thought Made
leine, trembling
When they wished him to take medi-
cine, strip or little soup, he refused
lie refused everything.
"Dost thou wish anything, Franco.s?"
mo, wish nothing"
1--WE must draw him out of this" the
doctor said. "This torpor frightens
mel You are the father and mother,
you know the child well. Seek for
something to reanimate his little body.
Recall to earth the spirit which runs
after the clouds"
Then he went away.
"Seekl"
Yes, without doubt they knew him
we'll, their Francois, these worthy peo-
plel They knew how it amused him to
plumber the hedges on Sunday and to
come back to Paris on his fathers
shoulders laden with hawthorn.
Jacques Legrand had bought some i'm
ages, some gilded soldiers and some
Chinese shadows for Francois; he cut
them out, put them on the child's bed
and made them dance before the
bewildered eyes of the little one, and
with desire to weep himself he tried
to make him laugh.
"Dost thou see, it Is the broken
bridge. Tire, tire, tire. And this is
the general Thou rememberest we
saw one general, once, in the Bots de
Boulogncp If thou takest thy medicine
we'll will buy thee real one, with a
cloth tunic and gold epaulettes. Dost
thou wish for him, the general, say?"
"No," replied the child, in the dry
voice which fever gives.
but what dost thou wish, my Fran
cois?" asked the mother. LET us see,
there Is certainly something thou
wouldst like to have. Tell it, tell it to
mel to mel thy mother!" And she laid
her cheek on the pillow of the sick boy,
and whispered this softly in his ear, as
IL It were a secret. Then the child,
with an odd accent, Strengthening him.
self up in his bed and stretching out his
hand eagerly toward some invisible
thing. replied suddenly in an ardent
tone. at the same time supplicating and
Imperative:
al want Boum- Boum"
Poor Madeleine threw frightened
look toward her husband. What did
the little one say? Was it the delirium,
tba fr;ghtful delirium, which had come
back again?
Boum-B oum!
She aid not know what that meant
and she was afraid of these singu lar
words which the child repeated with a
sicklv persistence, as II, not having
Jared until now to formulate his dream,
he 0rasped the present time with In
yincible obstinacy:
Eyes, Boum-Boum! Boum-Boum!
want Boum-BoumF'
The mother had seized Jacques hand
and spoke very low, and as If demented
"What does that mean, Jacques? lie
Is lostr'
Rut the father had on his rough
workingman's face~Ha smile almost
happy, but astonished, too; the smile
of a condemned man who foresees a
possibility of liberty. :,
Boum.Boum! He remembered well
the morning of Easter Monday when
he had taken Francois to the circus
lie had still in his ears the child's out
bursts Of Joy, the happy laugh OF the
amused boy, when the clown, the beau.
tiful clown, all spangled with gold and
with great gilded, many-colored
butterfly sparkling on the back OF his
black costume, skipped across the
track, gave the trip to rider or held
himself motionless and stiff on the
sand, his head down and his feet in the
air. Or again he tossed up to the chan
delier some soft, felt hats which he
caught adroitly on his head, where
they formed, one by one, pyramid
and at each jest, like refrain bright
onI infallinant face