Ottumwa tri-weekly courier., 1908-08-08

| ludI d SLldH6Ol udu IdhSu luS pldC0
of Miss Joy, and that he would sit
there in the chair until the doctor
came. The little boy in the middle of
the bed moved restlessly, and moaned
in his sleep, faint cries which pos
sessed curiously penetrating power:
the poignant appeal Of the utterly
helpless.
Face to face with disease and death,
Hugo became supersensitively con-
scious Of his own health and strength.
Physically, he had not felt SO extra
ordinarily eft" for some years Nat.
urally a temperate man, so far as meat
and drink were concerned, he had,
however, obeyed the apostolic injunc-
ton by eating without much thought
! whatever was set before him. and this
included the best of everything and
far too much Of 1t. Another year or
two of the f1eshpots of Mayfair and
he would have acquired the ripe, over
| fed look of that swash-buckling ex-
major of Lancers, who had acclaimed
him as "Old SPORT" A few weeks of
hard exercise and the plainest food
had given back to him the elasticity
and exhilaration of youth.
| Unquestionably this recuperation
would have been less marked had Hugo
allowed his mind to dwell much upon
either the past or the future. He had
deliberately put these from him, liv-
| ing in and for the present alone, and
in this he had been wise with the wis
dom of the bear, who curls himself
UP in his snug winter quarters without
any morbid misgivings as to whether
a square meal will be procurable when
he tumbled out in the spring.
| Presently the throat Of the eldest
patient had to be painted. The taking
of temperatures and the painful swal-
lowing Of milk followed. The chill
dren were very docile: a bad sign.
They obeyed orders, sinking back on
to their pillows without speaking a
word; but the third child was uncon-
scious and quite unable to take either
milk or medicine Hugo watched it
more keenly, wondering if it would
pull through, knowing (for Tisdale
had told him) that he could do moth
Ing except look on at the final struggle
/ between Nature and Death.
Believing the child to be growing
worse, he laid his finger upon her
wrist To his surprise the pulse was
slower and less wiry than it had been
half an hour before. He put the clin-
ical thermometer beneath her arm.
Another surprise: the high tempera-
ture was falling. And yet, surely,
surely, the child was dying. Each
breath ratified in the small throat.
He glanced at his watch Nearly
| Lon, nd bo1f he
in few minutes Tisdale would be
here, Tisdale, who had predicted a
higher temperature and a galloping
pulse.
Suddenly, as if by inspiration, he
understood. The child was better;
Nature had conquered; and-oh!
irony or fate!-she would die all the
same, not of diphtheria, but of suffo-
cation. He hesitated a moment and
then went into the parlor What was
left Of the Purkess family was sound
asleep.
/. Hugo sent the father hot foot for
the nurse and went back to the bed.
room. The child's complexion was
perceptibly darker, and there was a
convulsion of the limbs, clenching
of the tiny fists, with every breath
that was drawn. He laid his finger
upon the throat; it was hard to the
touch, swollen and slightly discolored
! Would the nurse never come? And
when she came, what could she do?
CHAPTER XIV.
A few minutes later he heard Pur.
kess's heavy step upon the brick-laid
path, and then, bringing with her a
| faint fragrance of the forest the nurse
entered
She was small, but erect and alert
with pair of round eyes that remind
ed Hugo at once of robins, being
! singularly bright and quick in their
movements. She flashed a glance at
him, nodded, and bent over the con
vulsed child. At her touch she seem
ed to become better. but the hard rat
tie in the throat continued.
/ ''She's been getting worse" said
Hugo
Purkes stood in corner of the
room, looking on, wide awake and
frightened out of his life. From the
closet came the heavy, stertorous
breathing of his wife. Upon his fore
head the veins stood out; and when
he wiped the sweat from his face his
thick hairy hands trembled. The
helplessness of the man was pathetic
Cant you do anything?" whispered
Hugo.
The nurse shook her head
"Tisdale will be here in a minute o,
two"
He'll arrive too late,' she replied
with authority.
He marvelled at her self-possession
her air even of contentment, and tht
indefinable expression Of well-being
recognizable at once but so hard 7;
define. She was nearly thirty, but he
clear, smooth skin had not a line
upon it,
Suddenly, Purkess began to sob vic
lently.
j Hugo looked with appeal at th'
nurse, who nodded her head. The poo
fellows grief had something terribl,
animal about it, something, too no
quite sane, like the fury of hors
that kicks out his masters brains il
moment of terror. Afterwards
thinking the incident over, Hugo dc
cided that this tremendous ebulitiol