A LITTLE BROTHER
"I'm glad he's better, and—and is he through with the book?" he asked eagerly.
"The book? What book is it, my dear? Sure the nurse does be reading a hundred books to him."
"A brown book: Stories of Gods and Heroes. I'd like it, if he's through with it. I stay at the libr'y, and I sent it to him—" he sank on the step, exhausted.
The kind-hearted girl dragged him into the hall. "Come out with me, dear, and get a glass of cold milk," she said. "You've walked too far."
Seated on a chair in the kitchen, his eyes closed, he heard, as in a dream, his friend's voice raised in dispute with some distant person.
"And I say he shall have it, then. Walking all this way! And him lame, too! Tell Emma to put it on the tray, and leave it in the hall. The child's well enough now, anyway. I'll go get it myself—I'm not afraid. The whole of us had the fever, and no such smelling sheets pinned up, and no fuss at all, at all. I'm as good as a paid nurse, any day, if you come to that. A book'll hurt no one."
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