第23章 AN ASTRAL ONION(3)

Tig was getting better, though he was con-scious of a weak heart and a lamenting stomach, when, to his amazement, the Spar-row ceased to visit him.Not for a moment did Tig suspect desertion.He knew that only something in the nature of an act of Providence, as the insurance companies would designate it, could keep the little bundle of bones away from him.As the days went by, he became convinced of it, for no Sparrow came, and no coal lay upon the hearth.The basement window fortunately looked toward the south, and the pale April sunshine was beginning to make itself felt, so that the tem-perature of the room was not unbearable.But Tig languished; sank, sank, day by day, and was kept alive only by the conviction that the letter announcing the award of the thousand-dollar prize would presently come to him.

One night he reached a place, where, for hunger and dejection, his mind wandered, and he seemed to be complaining all night to Nora of his woes.When the chill dawn came, with chittering of little birds on the dirty pavement, and an agitation of the scrawny willow "pussies," he was not able to lift his hand to his head.The window before his sight was but "a glimmering square." He said to himself that the end must be at hand.Yet it was cruel, cruel, with fame and fortune so near! If only he had some food, he might summon strength to rally -- just for a little while! Impossible that he should die! And yet without food there was no choice.

Dreaming so of Nora's dinners, thinking how one spoonful of a stew such as she often compounded would now be his salvation, he became conscious of the presence of a strong perfume in the room.It was so familiar that it seemed like a sub-consciousness, yet he found no name for this friendly odor for a bewildered minute or two.Little by little, however, it grew upon him, that it was the onion -- that fragrant and kindly bulb which had attained its apotheosis in the cuisine of Nora Finnegan of sacred memory.He opened his languid eyes, to see if, mayhap, the plant had not attained some more palpable mate-rialization.

Behold, it was so! Before him, in a brown earthen dish, -- a most familiar dish, -- was an onion, pearly white, in placid seas of gravy, smoking and delectable.With unexpected strength he raised himself, and reached for the dish, which floated before him in a halo made by its own steam.It moved toward him, offered a spoon to his hand, and as he ate he heard about the room the rustle of Nora Finnegan's starched skirts, and now and then a faint, faint echo of her old-time laugh -- such an echo as one may find of the sea in the heart of a shell.

The noble bulb disappeared little by little before his voracity, and in contentment greater than virtue can give, he sank back upon his pillow and slept.

Two hours later the postman knocked at the door, and receiving no answer, forced his way in.Tig, half awake, saw him enter with no surprise.He felt no surprise when he put a letter in his hand bearing the name of the magazine to which he had sent his short story.

He was not even surprised, when, tearing it open with suddenly alert hands, he found within the check for the first prize -- the check he had expected.

All that day, as the April sunlight spread itself upon his floor, he felt his strength grow.

Late in the afternoon the Sparrow came back, paler, and more bony than ever, and sank, breathing hard, upon the floor, with his sack of coal.

"I've been sick," he said, trying to smile.

"Terrible sick, but I come as soon as I could.""Build up the fire," cried Tig, in a voice so strong it made the Sparrow start as if a stone had struck him."Build up the fire, and forget you are sick.For, by the shade of Nora Finnegan, you shall be hungry no more!"