lately.

"As I was sayin', 'course you can ask, but I'm thinkin' there won't be
nothin' you can do ter help. Ev'rythin' that can be done is bein' done.
In fact, there ain't much of anythin' else that is bein' done down
there jest now but, tendin' ter him. They've got one o' them 'ere
edyercated nurses from the Junction--what wears caps, ye know, an'
makes yer feel as if they knew it all, an' you didn't know nothin'. An'
then there's Mr. an' Mis' Holly besides. If they had THEIR way, there
wouldn't neither of, em let him out o' their sight fur a minute,
they're that cut up about it."

"I fancy they think a good deal of the boy--as we all do," murmured the
younger man, a little unsteadily.

Larson winkled his forehead in deep thought.

"Yes; an' that's what beats me," he answered slowly; "'bout HIM,--Mr.
Holly, I mean. 'Course we'd 'a' expected it of HER--losin' her own boy
as she did, an' bein' jest naturally so sweet an' lovin'-hearted. But
HIM--that's diff'rent. Now, you know jest as well as I do what Mr.
Holly is--every one does, so I ain't sayin' nothin' sland'rous. He's a
good man--a powerful good man; an' there ain't a squarer man goin' ter
work fur. But the fact is, he was made up wrong side out, an' the seams
has always showed bad--turrible bad, with ravelin's all stickin' out
every which way ter ketch an' pull. But, gosh! I'm blamed if that, ere
boy ain't got him so smoothed down, you wouldn't know, scursely, that
he had a seam on him, sometimes; though how he's done it beats me. Now,
there's Mis' Holly--she's tried ter smooth 'em, I'll warrant, lots of
times. But I'm free ter say she hain't never so much as clipped a
ravelin' in all them forty years they've lived tergether. Fact is, it's
worked the other way with her. All that HER rubbin' up ag'in' them
seams has amounted to is ter git herself so smoothed down that she
don't never dare ter say her soul's her own, most generally,--anyhow,
not if he happens ter intermate it belongs ter anybody else!"

Jack Gurnsey suddenly choked over a cough.

"I wish I could--do something," he murmured uncertainly.

"'T ain't likely ye can--not so long as Mr. an' Mis' Holly is on their
two feet. Why, there ain't nothin' they won't do, an' you'll believe
it, maybe, when I tell you that yesterday Mr. Holly, he tramped all
through Sawyer's woods in the rain, jest ter find a little bit of moss
that the boy was callin' for. Think o' that, will ye? Simeon Holly
huntin' moss!