This news caused much lamentation, which was instantly changed to joy, when Uncle Isaac said, quietly, and as if it were the only thing to be said under the circumstances,—
“If thee will give me the address, Friend Leslie, I will drive in for the lad to-morrow. Mercy can arrange a bed in the bottom of the spring wagon, and I think the slight risk we shall cause him to run will be justifiable, under the circumstances. The kitchen-chamber is vacant, and he can sleep there, until David goes.”
Mr. Leslie clasped the old man’s hand with affectionate warmth, nor could he help saying softly, so that only Uncle Isaac heard,—
“‘I was a stranger, and ye took Me in; sick, and in prison, and ye visited Me.’”
Aunt Mercy asked Tiny and Johnny to help her make ready the kitchen chamber, the next day, and Johnny will never receive any more delightful flattery than her gentle,—
“Thee is such a carpenter, Johnny, and so handy, that I thought perhaps thee could bore a gimlet-hole in the floor, here by the bed, and then fix a piece of twine along one of the rafters in the kitchen, till it reached the door-bell—no one-ever rings that, thee knows, and that poor boy may want something, and be too weak to call.”
So Johnny arranged the bell-pull, while Aunt Mercy and Tiny tacked up green paper shades, and white muslin curtains, to the two windows and spread the straw mattress, first with three or four folded “comfortables,” and then with lavender-scented sheets and a white bed-spread, and put a clean cover on the bureau, and on the little one-legged and three-footed table which was to stand by the bed. Two or three braided rugs were laid upon the floor, and then, when Tiny had decorated the bureau with a bunch of the brightest flowers she could find, the room was all ready, “and too lovely for anything,” as Tiny said.
Jim was afraid, at first, that his new friends would not understand why he could not, try as he might, find voice to say anything, when Uncle Isaac and David carried him upstairs, and gently placed him on the white bed. There was a lump in his throat which would not let any words pass it, but he raised his eyes to Aunt Mercy’s face, with a look which somehow made her stroke his hot forehead with her soft, cool hands, and say tenderly,—