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Updated: September 12, 2025
"I may gang, but I winna sleep. I'll aye be thinkin' o' ye tossin' on the sea. I pray for ye a lang time ilka nicht, Jamie." "Ay, I ken." "An' I pictur ye ilka hour o' the day. Ye never gang hame through thae terrible streets at nicht but I'm thinkin' o' ye." "I would try no to be sae sad, mother," said Leeby. "We've ha'en a richt fine time, have we no?"
In another two minutes we were a group of four in the kitchen, staring vacantly. Death could not have startled us more, tapping thrice that quiet night on the window-pane. "It's diphtheria!" said Jess, her hands trembling as she buttoned her wrapper. She looked at me, and Leeby looked at me. "It's no, it's no," cried Leeby, and her voice was as a fist shaken at my face.
"Them 'at has 't never recovers," said Jess, sitting down very quietly. A stick fell from the fire, and she bent forward to replace it. "They do recover," cried Leeby, again turning angry eyes on me. I could not face her; I had known so many who did not recover. She put her hand on her mother's shoulder. "Mebbe ye would be better in yer bed," suggested Hendry. No one spoke.
"There's to be a puddin' made the morn, Leeby. Ou, ay, a' thing points to that; an' we're very sure there's nae puddins at the lawyer's on the Sabbath onless they hae company." "I dinna ken wha they can hae, if it be na that brither o' the wife's 'at bides oot by Aberdeen." "Na, it's no him, Leeby; na, na. He's no weel to do, an' they wouldna be buyin' cream for 'im."
"I kent Jamie had been ransackin' up here, though he came up rale canny. Ay, ye would notice he was in his stockin' soles." I had not noticed this, but I remembered now his slipping from the room very softly. If he wanted a book, I told Leeby, he could have got it without any display of cunning. "It's no a book he's lookin' for," she said, "na, it's his glove."
"Sune after Hendry came in carryin' Joey. Joey was as naked as Leeby, and as cauld as lead, but he wasna greetin'. Instead o' that he was awfu' satisfied like, and for all Hendry threatened to lick him he wouldna tell what he an' Leeby had been doin'. He says, though, says he, 'Ye'll no gang awa noo, mother; no, ye'll bide noo. My bonny laddie, I didna fathom him at the time.
Do not laugh at the newspapers with which Leeby papered the garret, nor at the yarn Hendry stuffed into the windy holes. He did it to warm the house for Jess. But the paper must have gone to pieces and the yarn rotted decades ago. I have kept the kitchen for the last, as Jamie did on the dire day of which I shall have to tell.
Ye'll mind she was never pleased wi' the set o' the flowers." "Weel, weel, here comes the minister himsel, an' very snod he is. Ay, Marget's been puttin' new braid on his coat, an' he's carryin' the sma' black bag he bocht in Dundee last year: he'll hae's nicht-shirt an' a comb in't, I dinna doot. Ye micht rin to the corner, Leeby, an' see if he cries in at Jess McTaggart's in passin'."
Jess had packed it herself. Leeby was wiser. "Let her do't," she whispered, "it'll keep her frae broodin'." Jess tied ends of yarn round the stockings to keep them in a little bundle by themselves. So she did with all the other articles. "No 'at it's ony great affair," she said, for on the last night they were all thirsting to do something for Jamie that would be a great affair to him.
Jamie jumped from it in the long great-coat that had been new to Thrums the year before, and Hendry said calmly "Ay, Jamie." Leeby and Jamie made signs that they recognized each other as brother and sister, but I was the only one with whom he shook hands. He was smart in his movements and quite the gentleman, but the Thrums ways took hold of him again at once.
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