“Here, Sissy, right here.”

She extended a thin, wasted hand.

“I want you to have it, Pap,” she said, speaking very slowly, but in a clearer tone.  “You see, it’s like this.  I’ve got the diptheery, an’ I’m a-goin’ to die.  I don’t need the money—­see!  And you do, you pore old Pap, so you must take it.”

Pap took the money in silence.  George Leadham had turned aside, unable to speak.  I stood behind the door, out of sight.  Sissy stared anxiously at Pap.

“Popsy said you wouldn’t come, but I knew you would,” she sighed.  “Good-bye, you pore old Pap.”  She closed her eyes, but she held Pap’s hand.  The young doctor came forward with his finger upon his lips.  Quietly, he signed to Pap to leave the room; the old man shook his head.  The doctor beckoned the father and me out on to the porch.

“Miracles sometimes happen,” said he, gravely.  “The child has fallen into a natural sleep.”

But not for three hours did her grip relax of Pap’s hand, and he sat beside her patiently, refusing to budge.  Who shall say what was passing in his mind, so long absorbed in itself, and now, if one could judge by his face, absorbed at last in this child?

When he came out of the room he spoke to the doctor in a new voice.

“If she wants anything—­anything, you understan’—­you get it—­see?”

“Certainly.”

“And look ye here; I shall be stayin’ at my old adobe, but if the others want fer anything, you understan’, get it—­see?”

“Certainly, Mr. Spooner.  I shall not fail to call on you, sir, because we want many things.”

“That’s all right; but,” his tone grew hard and sharp, “if—­if she—­ dies, this contrack is broke.  The rest kin die too; the sooner the better.”

“But she won’t die, Mr. Spooner,” said the young doctor, cheerfully.  “I feel in my bones, sir, that Sissy Leadham won’t die.”

And it may be added here that she didn’t.

* * * * *

At the ranch-house that night Ajax and I sat up, watching, waiting, praying for the rain that would wash the diphtheria from Paradise and despair from our hearts.  The south-east wind sang louder and louder in the cotton woods by the creek; the parched live oaks crackled with fear that the gathering clouds should roll by, the willows shivered and bowed themselves low in supplication.  From the parched earth and every living thing thereon went up the passionate cry for water.

One by one we saw the stars fade out of the sky.  The Dipper disappeared; then the Pole Star was extinguished.  Orion veiled his triple splendours.  The Milky Way ceased to be....

“It’s coming,” whispered Ajax.

Suddenly the wind died down; the trees became mute; only the frogs croaked a final Hallelujah Chorus, because they alone knew.  And then, out of the heaven which had seemed to have forsaken us, coming slowly at first, as if with the timid, halting step of a stranger; coming quickly and gladly afterwards, as an old friend comes back to the place where he is sure of a welcome; and lastly, with a sound of ten thousand pattering feet, with a whirring of innumerable wings, with a roar of triumph and ecstasy, Prosperity poured down upon Paradise.