第12章

"Have I done anything, Barney?" said the younger boy, his dismay showing in his tone.

"No, no, Dick, boy, it has nothing to do with you." He put his hands on his brother's shoulders, the nearest thing to an embrace he ever allowed himself. "It is in myself; but to you, my boy, I am the same." His speech came now hurriedly and with difficulty:

"And whatever comes to me or to you, Dick, remember I shall never change to you--remember that, Dick, to you I shall never change."

His breath was coming in quick gasps. The younger boy gazed at his usually so undemonstrative brother. Suddenly he threw his arms about his neck, crying in a broken voice, "You won't, Barney, I know you won't. If you ever do I don't want to live."

For a single moment Barney held the boy in his arms, patting his shoulder gently, then, pushing him back, said impatiently, "Well, I am a blamed old fool, anyway. What in the diggins is the matter with me, I don't know. I guess I want supper, nothing to eat since noon. But all the same, Dick," he added in a steady, matter-of-fact tone, "we must expect many changes from this out, but we'll stand by each other till the world cracks."

After Dick had gone upstairs with his father, Barney and his mother sat together talking over the doings of the day after their invariable custom.

"He is looking thin, I am thinking," said the mother.

"Oh, he's right enough. A few days after the reaper and a few meals out of your kitchen, mother, and he will be as fit as ever."

"That was a fine work of yours with the doctor." The indifferent tone did not deceive her son for a moment.

"Oh, pshaw, that was nothing. At least it seemed nothing then.

There were things to be done, blood to be stopped, skin to be sewed up, and I just did what I could." The mother nodded slightly.

"You did no more than you ought, and that great Tom Magee might be doing something better than lying on his back on the floor like a baby."

"He couldn't help himself, mother. That's the way it struck him.

But, man, it was fine to see the doctor, so quick and so clever, and never a slip or a stop." He paused abruptly and stood upright looking far away for some moments. "Yes, fine! Splendid!" he continued as in a dream. "And he said I had the fingers and the nerve for a surgeon. That's it. I see now--mother, I'm going to be a doctor."

His mother stood and faced him. "A doctor? You?"

The sharp tone recalled her son.

"Yes, me. Why not?"

"And Richard?"

Her son understood her perfectly. His mind went back to a morning long ago when his mother, putting his younger brother's hand in his as they set forth to school for the first time, said, "Take care of your brother, Bernard. I give him into your charge." That very day and many a day after he had stood by his brother, had fought for him, had pulled him out of scraps into which the younger lad's fiery temper and reckless spirit were frequently plunging him, but never once had he consciously failed in the trust imposed on him.

And as Dick developed exceptional brilliance in his school work, together they planned for him, the mother and the older brother, the mother painfully making and saving, the brother accepting as his part the life of plodding obscurity in order that the younger boy might have his full chance of what school and college could do for him. True to the best traditions of her race, the mother had fondly dreamed of a day when she should hear from her son's lips the word of life. With never a thought of the sacrifice she was demanding, she had drawn into this partnership her elder son. And thus to the mother it seemed nothing less than an act of treachery, amounting to sacrilege, that Barney for a single moment should cherish for himself an ambition whose realisation might imperil his brother's future. Barney needed, therefore, no explanation of his mother's cry of dismay, almost of horror. He was quick with his answer.

"Dick? Oh, mother, do you think I was forgetting Dick? Of course nothing must stop Dick. I can wait--but I am going to be a doctor."

The mother looked into her son's rugged face, so like her own in its firm lines, and replied almost grudgingly, "Ay, I doubt you will." Then she added hastily, as if conscious of her ungracious tone, "And what for should you not?"

"Thank you, mother," said her son humbly, "and never fear we'll stand by Dick."

Her eyes followed him out of the room and for some moments she stood watching the door through which he had passed. Then, with a great sigh, she said aloud: "Ay, it is the grand doctor he will make. He has the nerve and the fingers whatever." Then after a pause she added: "And he will not fail the laddie, I warrant."