k 'em?"

That afternoon finished his task. Each day, but without paper and
pencil, he returned to the stoop. He was greatly absorbed in the one
tree that grew across the street. He studied it for hours at a time, and
was unusually interested when the wind swayed its branches and fluttered
its leaves. Throughout the week he seemed lost in a great communion
with himself. On Sunday, sitting on the stoop, he laughed aloud, several
times, to the perturbation of his mother, who had not heard him laugh
for years.

Next morning, in the early darkness, she came to his bed to rouse him.
He had had his fill of sleep all the week, and awoke easily. He made no
struggle, nor did he attempt to hold on to the bedding when she stripped
it from him. He lay quietly, and spoke quietly.

"It ain't no use, ma."

"You'll be late," she said, under the impression that he was still
stupid with sleep.

"I'm awake, ma, an' I tell you it ain't no use. You might as well lemme
alone. I ain't goin' to git up."

"But you'll lose your job!" she cried.

"I ain't goin' to git up," he repeated in a strange, passionless voice.

She did not go to work herself that morning. This was sickness
beyond any sickness she had ever known. Fever and delirium she could
understand; but this was insanity. She pulled the bedding up over him
and sent Jennie for the doctor.

When that person arrived, Johnny was sleeping gently, and gently he
awoke and allowed his pulse to be taken.

"Nothing the matter with him," the doctor reported. "Badly debilitated,
that's all. Not much meat on his bones."

"He's always been that way," his mother volunteered.

"Now go 'way, ma, an' let me finish my snooze."

Johnny spoke sweetly and placidly, and sweetly and placidly he rolled
over on his side and went to sleep.

At ten o'clock he awoke and dressed himself. He walked out into the
kitchen, where he found his mother with a frightened expression on her
face.

"I'm goin' away, ma," he announced, "an' I jes' want to say good-bye."

She threw her apron over her head and sat down suddenly and wept. He
waited patiently.

"I might a-known it," she was sobbing.

"Where?" she finally asked, removing the apron from her head and gazing
up at him with a stricken face in which there was little curiosity.

"I don't know--anywhere."

As he spoke, the tree across the street appeared with dazzling
brightness on his inner vision. It seemed to lurk just under his
eyelids, and he c