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The boy smiled faintly - so very, very faintly - and put his hand upon
his friend's grey head. He moved his lips too, but no voice came from
them; no, not a sound. In the silence that ensued, the hum of distant
voices borne upon the evening air came floating through the open
window. 'What's that?' said the sick child, opening his eyes.
'The boys at play upon the green.'
He took a handkerchief from his pillow, and tried to wave it above his
head. But the feeble arm dropped powerless down.
'Shall I do it?' said the schoolmaster.
'
Please wave it at the window,' was the faint reply. 'Tie it to the lattice.
Some of them may see it there. Perhaps they'll think of me, and look
this way.'
He raised his head, and glanced from the fluttering signal to his idle
bat, that lay with slate and book and other boyish property upon a
table in the room. And then he laid him softly down once more, and
asked if the little girl were there, for he could not see her.
She stepped forward, and pressed the passive hand that lay upon the
coverlet. The two old friends and companions - for such they were,
though they were man and child - held each other in a long embrace,
and then the little scholar turned his face towards the wall, and fell
asleep.
The poor schoolmaster sat in the same place, holding the small cold
hand in his, and chafing it. It was but the hand of a dead child. He felt
that; and yet he chafed it still, and could not lay it down.
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