"What is it? Where am I?" he asked, and Daisy replied: "You are here in my room--on my bed; and you've got the fever, and I'm
going to take care of you, and I'm so glad. Not glad you have the
fever," she added, as she met his look of wonder, "but glad I can repay
in part all you did for me, you dear, noble Tom! And you are not to
talk," and she laid her small hand on his mouth as she saw him about to
speak. "I am strong enough; the doctor says so, and I'd do it if he
didn't, for you are the best, the truest friend I have."
She was rubbing his hot, feverish hands, and though the touch of her
cool, soft fingers was so delicious, poor Tom thought of the big
freckles so obnoxious to the little lady, and, drawing his hands from
her grasp, hid them beneath the clothes. Gladly, too, would he have
covered his face and hair from her sight, but this he could not do and
breathe, but he begged her to leave him and send someone in her place.
But Daisy would not listen to him.
He had nursed her day and night, she said, and she should stay with him,
and she did, through three weeks, when Tom's fever ran higher than hers
had done, because there was more for it to feed upon, and when Tom in
his ravings talked of things which made her heart ache with a new and
different pain from that already there.
At first there were low whisperings and incoherent mutterings, and when
Daisy asked him to whom he was talking he answered her: "To that other one over in the corner. Don't you see him? He is waiting
for me till the fever eats me up. There's a lot of me to eat, I'm so big
and awkward, overgrown--that's what Daisy said. You know Daisy, don't
you? a dainty little creature, with such delicacy of sight and touch!
She doesn't like red hair; she said so when we thought the man in the
corner was waiting for her, and she doesn't like my freckled face and
hands--big hands, she said they were, and yet how they have worked like
horses for her! Oh, Daisy! Daisy! I have loved her ever since she was a
child, and I drew her to school on my sled and cut her doll's head off
to tease her. Take me quick, please, out of her sight, where my freckled
face won't offend her."
He was talking now to that other one, the man in the corner, who, like
some grim sentinel, stood there day and night, while Daisy kept her
tireless watch and Tom talked on and on--never to her--but always to the
other one, the man in the corner, whom he begged to take him away.