Isn’t the world just the most wonderful place?  No one knows it at all until after it has played battledore and shuttlecock with them, and they have been tossed to and fro for a long time.  Weren’t those old Persians wonderful people?  Of course they had no means of knowing the real truth but it surely was the next thing to it to worship the dear sun.  It goes away and leaves things dark and dismal, and there may be hail and sleet and rain, and the outlook is all dark, but presently the clouds move and the fog blows away and the path of light twinkles over the big ocean and the very grasses of the hillsides perk up and the birds try to split their little throats with song.  They are all sun-worshippers.

Of course you want to know at once how it all came about.  I am still shaky and uncertain, as if I had just been awakened.  Sometimes I hardly believe that it is the real truth that I behold, but merely some vision that must pass away like the gold and the crimson of the fading day.

John is getting well!  I feel that I want to shout it farther than the voice of man ever carried before.  I wish that wonderful Marconi could set all these little waves he makes in the air to vibrating at once and carry over the whole world the tidings that my John is going to live!  Of course there were a few very dreadful days, and some nights that were agony, and that nice little doctor lost his red cheeks and looked pale and wan, and of course I was very, very tired.  That dear Mrs. Barnett or her husband were always with me, and no one could ever make Frenchy leave the place for a minute, and old Sammy hovered around constantly.  The people walked about the tiny village as if it had been a town smitten by a great pestilence, as used to happen in those old dark ages.  There have been no more cases, because the doctor has injected some of that stuff in the arms of all who had been in the slightest degree exposed, and it doesn’t hurt very much, Aunt Jennie.

But the amazing day was the one upon which I arose, before dawn, because they had just forced me to go to bed the night before, and I hurried down to Frenchy’s, in the keen cold air, and met Dr. Johnson who was quietly pacing the road and smoking his pipe, which must have been very bad for him so early in the morning.  But then I think we have all lost count of hours.  When he heard my steps he turned quickly, and his cheeks looked quite pink again, perhaps owing to the cold, and his eyes were just as bright as bright could be, and he just ran towards me.  I think my hands began to shake, for I had lost all memory of what a happy face looked like, I think, and the sight of his was like something that strikes one full in the chest and takes one’s breath away.

He just grabbed both my hands, because he is such a nice friendly boy.

“Do you mean to tell me....”  I began, but he interrupted me.

“Indeed I certainly do,” he answered, speaking ever so quickly.  “You had not been gone for more than a couple of hours when he opened his eyes and looked at me, very much puzzled, and made a little effort to rise, which of course I checked at once, though his pulse and temperature had gone down, and he looked a lot better.