The Choir Invisible

When Mrs. Falconer had drawn near John's hut on the morning of his

misfortune, it was past noon despite all her anxious, sorrowful haste to

reach him. His wounds had been dressed. The crowd of people that had

gathered about his cabin were gone back to their occupations or their

homes--except a group that sat on the roots of a green tree several yards

from his door. Some of these were old wilderness folk living near by who had

offered to nurse him and otherwise to care for his comforts and needs.

The affair furnished them that renewed interest in themselves which is so liable

to revisit us when we have escaped a fellow-creature's suffering but can

relate good things about ourselves in like risks and dangers; and they were

drawing out their reminiscences now with unconscious gratitude for so

excellent an opportunity befalling them in these peaceful unadventurous

days. Several of John's boys lay in the grass and hung upon these

narratives. Now and then they cast awe-stricken glances at his door which

had been pushed to, that he might be quiet; or, if his pain would let him,

drop into a little sleep. They made it their especial care, when any

new-comer hurried past, to arrest him with the command that he must not go

in; and they would thus have stopped Mrs. Falconer but she put them gently

aside without heed or hearing.

When she softly pushed the door open, John was not asleep. He lay in a

corner on his low hard bed of skins against the wall of logs-- his eyes wide

open, the hard white glare of the small shutter-less window falling on his

face. He turned to her the look of a dumb animal that can say nothing of why

it has been wounded or of how it is suffering; stretched out his hand

gratefully; and drew her toward him. She sat down on the edge of the bed,

folded her quivering fingers across his temples, smoothed back his heavy,

coarse, curling hair, and bending low over his eyes, rained down into them

the whole unuttered, tearless passion of her distress, her sympathy.

Major Falconer came for her within the hour and she left with him almost as

soon as he arrived.

When she was gone, John lay thinking of her.

"What a nurse she is!" he said, remembering how she had concerned herself

solely his about life, his safety, his wounds. Once she had turned quickly: "Now you can't go away!" she had said with a smile that touched him deeply.

"I wish you didn't have to go!" he had replied mourningfully, feeling his

sudden dependence on her.