"How long" he began to ask, and then his voice broke. The emaciated
figure before him, the face bleached with the ghastly pallor which a
sunless prison gives, the deep sunken eyes looking like coals of fire,
eating their way into his brain, the tattered clothing, the long
unkempt hair and beard, prematurely whitening, and filled with filth,
the fingers grown claw-like and blue, with prison mould, the dull
vacant look and the thought that this was Reuben, his brother; these
things all filled him with such an unutterable, intolerable pity, that
it seemed as if he should lose his head and go wild for very anguish
of heart.
"I 'spose I'm kinder thin and some changed, so ye didn't know me,"
said Reuben, with a feeble smile. "Ye see I've been here a year, and
am going into a decline. I sent word home to have father ask Deacon
Nash if he wouldn't let me go home to be nussed up by mother. I should
get rugged again if I could have a little o' mother's nussin. P'raps
ye've come to take me home, Perez?" And a faint gleam of hope came
into his face.
"Reub, Reub, I didn't know you was here," groaned Perez, as he put his
arm about his brother, and supported his feeble figure.
"How come ye here, then?" asked Reuben.
Pages:
38
39
40
41
42
43
44
45
46
47
48
49
50
51
52
53
54
55
56
57
58
59
60
61
62