ately small
that he might have been holding a fairy, from the slight roundness of
the childish limbs and figure. Poor little girl!--Dan'l was much too
small and thin. Old man Daniel gazed down at her anxiously.

"Jest as soon as the nice fall weather comes," said he, "uncle is going
to take you down to the village real often, and you can get acquainted
with some other nice little girls and play with them, and that will do
uncle's little Dan'l good."

"I saw little Lucy Rose," piped the child, "and she looked at me real
pleasant, and Lily Jennings wore a pretty dress. Would they play with
me, uncle?"

"Of course they would. You don't feel quite so hot, here, do you?"

"I wasn't so hot, anyway; I was afeard of bats."

"There ain't any bats here."

"And skeeters."

"Uncle don't believe there's any skeeters, neither."

"I don't hear any sing," agreed little Dan'l in a weak voice. Very soon
she was fast asleep. The old man sat holding her, and loving her with
a simple crystalline intensity which was fairly heavenly. He himself
almost disregarded the heat, being raised above it by sheer exaltation
of spirit. All the love which had lain latent in his heart leaped
to life before the helplessness of this little child in his arms. He
realized himself as much greater and of more importance upon the face
of the earth than he had ever been before. He became paternity incarnate
and superblessed. It was a long time before he carried the little child
back to her room and laid her, still as inert with sleep as a lily,
upon her bed. He bent over her with a curious waving motion of his old
shoulders as if they bore wings of love and protection; then he crept
back down-stairs.

On nights like that he did not go to bed. All the bedrooms were under
the slant of the roof and were hot. He preferred to sit until dawn
beside his open window, and doze when he could, and wait with despairing
patience for the infrequent puffs of cool air breathing blessedly of wet
swamp places, which, even when the burning sun arose, would only show
dewy eyes of cool reflection. Daniel Wise, as he sat there through the
sultry night, even prayed for courage, as a devout sentinel might have
prayed at his post. The imagination of the deserter was not in the man.
He never even dreamed of appropriating to his own needs any portion
of his savings, and going for a brief respite to the deep shadows of
mountainous places, or to a cool coast, where the great waves