Let me tell you. It was like your Aunt Beth. It was in the night without even awakening the Bee Master. His hands were folded on his breast, too. There was a wonderful smile on his face, exactly the smile that you described, the smile that seemed as if there were a great secret that those closed lips could tell if they could open.”
Jamie fumbled for his handkerchief and turned the little Scout’s head and wiped the streaming eyes and cupped a big hand under the quivering cheeks and held on tight.
“Don’t cry like that,” he begged. “You are tearing yourself to pieces! The Master wouldn’t like it. Don’t you know that you said all the angels would be glad when they saw your Aunt Beth coming marching, straight and tall, with a sure step, down the flower ways of Heaven? It’s going to be like that with the Bee Master. You are selfish when you cry like that. You are not thinking about him; about his going home to Mary and his wee girl; you are thinking about yourself.”
Instantly the little figure straightened.
“Sure, I’m thinking about myself! Why shouldn’t I think about myself? I got myself to live with, haven’t I? Who’s going to be hurt when I’ve got a pain or ain’t strong enough to handle Ole Fat Bill, or when I can’t make anybody understand any of the things that he always did understand? He ain’t the only one that spilt the beans. When he told me all there was to tell about things that went wrong with him and the people who ruined him, he didn’t do all the talking. He knew just as much about me as I did about him, and now I ain’t got a living soul
