DUSENBERRY’S BIRTHDAY

Mrs. Baker met her husband at the door.

“How is he?” was the Captain’s first question.  “Better, hey?”

“No,” was the nervous answer.  “No, I don’t think he is.  His throat’s terrible sore and the fever’s just as bad.”

Again Captain Hiram’s conscience smote him.

“Dear! dear!” he exclaimed.  “And I’ve been loafin’ around the depot with Sol Berry and the rest of ’em instead of stayin’ home with you, Sophrony.  I knew I was doin’ wrong, but I didn’t realize—­”

“Course you didn’t, Hiram.  I’m glad you got a few minutes’ rest, after bein’ up with him half the night.  I do wish the doctor was home, though.  When will he be back?”

“Not until late to-morrer, if then.  Did you keep on givin’ the medicine?”

“Yes, but it don’t seem to do much good.  You go and set with him now, Hiram.  I must be seein’ about supper.”

So into the sick room went Captain Hiram to sit beside the crib and sing “Sailor boy, sailor boy, ’neath the wild billow,” as a lugubrious lullaby.

Little Hiram Joash tossed and tumbled.  He was in a fitful slumber when Mrs. Baker called her husband to supper.  The meal was anything but a cheerful one.  They talked but little.  Over the home, ordinarily so cheerful, had settled a gloom that weighed upon them.

“My! my!” sighed Captain Hiram, “how lonesome it seems without him chatterin’ and racketin’ sound.  Seems darker’n usual, as if there was a shadow on the place.”

“Hush, Hiram! don’t talk that way.  A shadow!  Oh, what made you say that?  Sounds like a warnin’, almost.”

“Warnin’?”

“Yes, a forewarnin’, you know.  ‘The valley of the shadow—­’”

“Hush!” Captain Baker’s face paled under its sunburn.  “Don’t say such things, Sophrony.  If that happened, the Lord help you and me.  But it won’t—­it won’t.  We’re nervous, that’s all.  We’re always so careful of Dusenberry, as if he was made out of thin china, that we get fidgety when there’s no need of it.  We mustn’t be foolish.”

After supper Mrs. Baker tiptoed into the bedroom.  She emerged with a very white face.

“Hiram,” she whispered, “he acts dreadful queer.  Come in and see him.”

The “first mate” was tossing back and forth in the crib, making odd little choky noises in his swollen throat.  When his father entered he opened his eyes, stared unmeaningly, and said:  “’Tand by to det der ship under way.”

“Good Lord! he’s out of his head,” gasped the Captain.  Sophronia and he stepped back into the sitting room and looked at each other, the same thought expressed in the face of each.  Neither spoke for a moment, then Captain Hiram said: 

“Now don’t you worry, Sophrony.  The Doctor ain’t home, but I’m goin’ out to—­to telegraph him, or somethin’.  Keep a stiff upper lip.  It’ll be all right.  God couldn’t go back on you and me that way.  He just couldn’t.  I’ll be back in a little while.”