did you do?"

"I nursed you for one thing, and gave you medicine and chicken broth and
milk and whiskey. Now, I shan't talk any more until the doctor comes.
Lie quiet and try to sleep."

But the jagged burn on her wrist still held my gaze, and catching her
hand as she turned away, I pressed my lips to it with all my strength.

"Your hand feels so queer, Sally. It's as red as if it had been
scalded."

"I've been cooking my dinner, and you see I eat a great deal. There,
now, that's positively my last word."

Bending over, she kissed me hurriedly, a tear fell on my face, and then
before I could catch the fluttering hem of her apron, she had broken
from me, and gone out, closing the door after her. For a minute I lay
perfectly motionless, too weak for thought. Then opening my eyes with an
effort, I stared straight up at the white ceiling, against which a green
June beetle was knocking with a persistent, buzzing sound that seemed an
accompaniment to the crooning lullaby of Aunt Euphronasia.

"Oh, we'se all gwine home ter glory, by en bye, lil' chillun,
We'se all gwine home ter glory, by en bye."

"Will he break his wings on the ceiling, or will he fly out of the
window?" I thought drowsily, and it appeared to me suddenly that my
personal troubles--my illness, my anxiety for Sally, and even the
poverty that must have pressed upon her--had receded to an obscure and
cloudy distance, in which they became less important in my mind than the
problem of the green June beetle knocking against the ceiling. "Will he
break his wings or will he fly out?" I asked, with a dull interest in
the event, which engrossed my thoughts to the exclusion of all personal
matters. "I ought to think of Sally and the child, but I can't. My head
won't let me. It has gone wrong, and if I begin to think hard thoughts
I'll go delirious again. There is jessamine blooming somewhere. Did she
have a spray in her hair when she bent over me? Why did she wear a
gingham apron at a ball instead of pink tarlatan? No, that was not the
problem I had to solve. Will he break his wings or will he fly out?"

"Oh, we'll fit on de golden slippers, by en bye, lil' chillun,"

crooned Aunt Euphronasia, rocking little Benjamin in the square of
sunlight.

The song soothed me and I slept for a minute. Then starting awake in the
cold sweat of terror, I struggled wildly after the problem which still
eluded me.

"Has he flown out?" I asked.

"Who, Marse Ben?