"And you'll help me a little on the way if it gets dark--won't you?" "If I can--you may always depend on me."Jim clasped his outstretched hand gratefully."Well, I'm going to make good."There was something so genuine and manly in the tones of his voice, he compelled the Doctor's respect.A smaller man might have sneered.The healer of souls and bodies had come to recognize with unerring instinct the true and false note in the human voice.
His heart went out in a wave of sympathy for the lonely, miserable young animal who stood before him now, trembling with the first sharp pains of the immortal thing that had awaked within.He slipped his arm about Jim's shoulders and whispered:
"I'll tell you something that may help you when the way gets dark--the wife is going to bear you a child.""No!"
"Yes."
"God!----That's great, ain't it?"
Jim choked into silence and looked up at the Doctor with dimmed eyes.
"Say, Doc, you hit me hard when you brought what she said--but that's good news! Watch me work my hands to the bone--you know it's my kid and she can't keep me from workin' for it if she tries now can she?""No."
"There's just one thing that'll hang over me like a black cloud," he mused sorrowfully.
"I know, boy--your mother's darkened mind." Jim nodded.
"When I see that queer glitter in her eyes it goes through me like a knife.Will she ever get over it?""We can't tell yet.It takes time.I believe she will.""You'll do the best you can for her, Doc?" he pleaded pathetically."You won't forget her a single day? If you can't cure her, nobody can.""I'll do my level best, boy." Jim pressed his hand again.
"Gee, but you've been a friend to me! I didn't know that there were such men in the world as you!"For six months the Doctor watched the transplanted child of the slums grow into a sturdy manhood in his new environment.He snapped at every suggestion his friend gave and with quick wit improved on it.He not only discovered and developed a mica mine on his mother's farm, he invented new machinery for its working that doubled the market output.Within six weeks from the time he began his shipments the mine was paying a steady profit of more than five hundred dollars a month.He had made just one trip to New York and secretly returned to the police every stolen jewel and piece of plunder taken, with a full confession of the time and place of the crime.He had shipped his tools and machinery from the workshop on the east side before his sensational act and made good his departure for the South.
The tools and machinery he installed in a new workshop which he built in the yard of Nance's cabin.Here he worked day and night at his blacksmith forge making the iron hinges, and irons, shovels, tongs, fire sets and iron work complete for a log bungalow of seven rooms which he was building on the sunny slope of the mountain which overlooks the valley toward Asheville.
The Doctor had lent Jim the blue-prints of his own home and he was quietly duplicating it with loving care.His wife might refuse to see him but he could build a home for their boy.For his sake she couldn't refuse it.
With childlike obedience Nance followed him every day and watched the workmen rear the beautiful structure under Jim's keen eyes and skillful hands.The man's devotion to his mother was pathetic.Only the Doctor knew the secret of his pitiful care, and he kept his own counsel.
