eart:
Shiloh was dying--the Bishop himself told him so--the Bishop with a
strange, set, hard look in his eyes--a look which Bud had never seen
there before, for it was sorrow mingled with defiance--in that a
great wrong had been done and done over his protest. It was culpable
sorrow too, somewhat, in that he had not prevented it, and a
heart-hardening sorrow in that it took the best that he loved.

"She jes' collapsed, Bud--sudden't like--wilted like a vi'let that's
stepped on, an' the Doctor says she's got no sho' at all, ther' bein'
nothin' to build on. She don't kno' nothin'--ain't knowed nothin'
since last night, an' she thinks she's in the mill--my God, it's
awful! The little thing keeps reaching out in her delirium an' tryin'
to piece the broken threads, an' then she falls back pantin' on her
pillow an' says, pitful like--'_the thread--the thread is broken!_'
an' that's jes' it, Bud--the thread _is_ broken!"

Tears were running down the old man's cheeks, and that strange thing
which now and then came up in Bud's throat and stopped him from
talking came again. He walked out and sat under a tree in the yard.
He looked at the other children sitting around stupid--numbed--with
the vague look in their faces which told that a sorrow had fallen,
but without the sensitiveness to know or care where. He saw a big
man, bronzed and hard-featured, but silent and sorrowful, walking to
and fro. Now and then he would stop and look earnestly through the
window at the little still figure on the bed, and then Bud would hear
him say--"_like little Jack--like little Jack_."

The sun went down--the stars came up--but Bud sat there. He could do
nothing, but he wanted to be there.

When the lamp was lighted in the cabin he could see all within the
home and that an old man held on a large pillow in his lap a little
child, and that he carried her around from window to window for air,
and that the child's eyes were fixed, and she was whiter than the
pillow. He also saw an old woman, lantern-jawed and ghostly, tidying
around and she mumbling and grumbling because no one would give the
child any turpentine.

And still Bud sat outside, with that lump in his throat, that thing
that would not let him speak.

Late at night another man came up with saddle bags, and hitching his
horse within a few feet of Bud, walked into the cabin.

He was a kindly man, and he stopped in the doorway and looked at the
old man, sitting with the sick child i