San Antonio daily light. [volume] (San Antonio, Tex.) 1886-1907, 1895-05-19
CLOWN AND CHILD.
A Tender Story of a Sick Room
Beautifully Told.

strange fixity of the sick who already
perceive what the living do not see.
The 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
ease on the poor, emaciated face of the
little being. The father, an honest
workman, kept back the tears which
burned his eyelids.
The June day broke clear and mild,
and lighted up the narrow room in the
street of the ADDRESSES where little
Francois, the child of Jacques and
Madeleine Legrand, lay dying. He
was seven years old, and was very fair,
very rosy, very lively. Not three
weeks ago he was gay as a sparrow;
but fever had seized him, and they
had brought him home 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 delirium when
he looked at his wellblackened shoes,
which his father had placed in q cor
ner on board, he said:
"You can throw them away now,
little Francois shoes! Little Francois
will not put them on any more! Little
Francois will not go to school any more
never, never!"
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 theatwo 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 WEAKNESS of life. He
was tired, silent, sad, and tossed his
little head about on the bolster. Ba
had no longer a smile on his poor,
thin lips, and with haggard eye he
seemed to look at, they knew not what,
something beyond them-very far off.
I'm Heaven, perhaps, thought Made
leine, trembling.
When they wished him to take medi-
cine, sirup or little soup, he refused.
He refused everything.
"Dost thou wish anything, Franco:s9"
mo, wish nothing"
1--WE must draw him out of this" the
doctor said. This torpor frightens
me! You are the father and mother,
YOU know the child we'll Seek for
something to reanimate his little body.
Recall to earth the spirit which runs
after the clouds"
Then he went away.
"Seek!"
Yes, without doubt they knew him
well, their Francois, these worthy peo-
pie! 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 rs the broken
bridge. Tire, tire, tire. And this Is
the general! Thou remembered we
saw one general, once, in the Bots de
Boulogne? If thou takest thy medicine
we'll will buy thee a real one, with a
cloth tunic and gold epaulettes. Dost
thou wish for him, the general, say?"
mo" 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 1t to
me! to me! thy mother!" And she laid
her cheek on the pillow Of the sick boy,
and whispered this softly in his ear, as
if 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:
81 want Boum-Boum!"
Poor Madeleine threw a frightened
look toward her husband. What did
the little one say? Was it the delirium,
the frightful delirium, which had come
back again?
Boum-Boum!
She did not know what that meant,
and she was afraid of these singular
words which the child repeated with
sickly persistence, as if, not having
dared until now to formulate his dream,
he grasped the present time with in
vincible obstinacy:
"Yes, Boum-Boum! Boum-Boum! l
want Boum Boum!'
The mother had seized Jacques hand
and spoke very low, and as itdemented.
what does that mean, Jacques? He
is lost"
But the father had on his rough,
workingman's face a 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
He 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