by looking at his brother's busy operations, carried on in a bustling, rattling way, to afford all the amusement possible; but the feverish restlessness soon returned.
"Take me up, do take me up," he cried; "and hold me near the broken pane, please, John;" and he stretched out his white, wasted hands.
John kindly lifted out the poor little fellow, and dragging a chair to the window, sat down with him on his knee, and held his face close to the broken pane, through which, however, no air seemed to come, and he soon began to cry again.
"What is it, Jem? – what's the matter?" said a kind voice at the door, where a woman stood, holding by the hand a pale child.
"I want mother," sobbed Jem.
"Mother's out at work, Mrs. Willis," said John; "and she thought she should be home at half-past seven; but she's kept later sometimes."
"Don't cry," said Mrs. Willis's little girl, coming forward. "Here's my orange for you."
Jem took it, and put it to his mouth; but he stopped, and asked John to cut it in two; gave back half to the little girl, made John taste the portion he kept, and then began to suck the cooling fruit with great pleasure, only pausing to say, with a smile, "Thank you, Mary."
"Now lie down again, and try to go to sleep; there's a good boy," said Mrs. Willis; "and mother will soon be here. I must go now."
Jem was laid in bed once more; but he tossed about restlessly, and the sad wail began again.
"I'll tell you what," said John, "if you will stop crying, I'll take down poor Harry's kite, and show you how he used to fly it."
"But mother don't like us to touch it."
"No; but she will not mind when I tell her why I did it this once. Look at the pretty blue and red figures on it. Harry made it, and painted it all himself; and look at the long tail!"
"But how did he fly it? Can't you show me how poor Harry used to fly it?"
John mounted on a chest, and holding the kite at arm's length, began to wave it about, and to make the tail shake, while Jem sat up admiring.
"This was the way he used to hold it up. Then he took the string that was fastened here – mother has got it in the chest – and he held the string in his hand, and when the wind came, and sent the kite up, he let the string run through his hand, and up it went over the trees, up – up – and he ran along in the fields, and it flew along under the blue sky."
John waved the kite more energetically as he described, and both the boys were so engrossed by it, that they did not observe that the mother, so longed for, had come in, and had sunk down on a chair near the door, her face bent and nearly hidden by the rusty crape on her widow's bonnet, while the tears fell fast on her faded black gown.
"Oh mother, mother!" cried Jem, who saw her first, "come and take me – come and comfort me!"
The poor woman rose quickly, wiped her eyes, and hastened to her sick child, who was soon nestled in her arms, and seemed to have there forgotten all his woes.
The kind, good-natured John had meanwhile hung up the kite in its place, and was looking rather anxiously at his mother, for he well understood the cause of the grief that had overcome her at the sight of his occupation, when she first came in; but she stroked his hair, looked kindly at him, and bade him make the kettle boil, and get the things out of her basket. All that was wanted for their simple supper was in it, and it was not long before little Jem was again laid down after the refreshment of tea; then a mattress was put in a corner for John, who was soon asleep; and the mother, tired with her day's hard work, took her place in the bed by the side of her child.
But the tears that had rolled fast down her cheeks as her lips moved in prayer before sleep came upon her, still made their way beneath the closed eyelids, and Jem awoke her by saying, as he stroked her face with his hot hand, "Don't cry, mother; we won't touch it again!"
"It's not that, my child; no, no: it's the thought of my own Harry. I think I see his pleasant face, and his curly hair, and his merry eyes looking up after his kite." It was not often she spoke out her griefs; but now, in the silent night, it seemed to comfort her.
"Tell me about him, mother, and about his going away? I like to hear you tell about him."
"He worked with father, you know, and a clever workman he learned to be."
"But he was much older than me. Shall I ever be a good workman, mother?"
The question made her heart ache with a fresh anguish, and she could not answer it; but replied to his first words, "Yes, he was much older. We laid three of our children in the grave between him and John. Harry was seventeen when his uncle took him to serve out his time in a merchant-ship. Uncle Ben, that was ship's carpenter, it was that took him. – The voyage was to last a year and a half, for they were to go to all manner of countries far, far away. One letter I had. It came on a sad day the day after poor father died, Jem. And then I had to leave our cottage in our own village, and bring you two to London, to find work to keep you; but I have always taken care to leave word where I was to be found, and have often gone to ask after letters. Not one has ever come again; and it's six months past the time when they looked for the ship, and they don't know what to think. But I know what I think: the sea has rolled over my dear boy, and I shall never see him again – never, never in this weary world."
"Don't cry so, mother dear; I'll try to go to sleep, and not make you talk."
"Yes – try; and if you can only get better, that will comfort me most."
Both closed their eyes, and sleep came upon them once more.
It was eight o'clock in the morning when the little boy awoke, and then he was alone; but to that he was accustomed. His mother was again gone to work, and John was out cleaning knives and shoes in the neighborhood. The table, with a small piece of bread and a cup of blue milk and water on it, stood beside him. He drank a little, but could not eat, and then lay down again with his eyes fixed on Harry's kite.
"Could he fly it," or rather, "could he see John fly it – really out of doors and in the air?" That was of all things what he most longed to do. He wondered where the fields were, and if he could ever go there and see the kite fly under the blue sky. Then he wondered if John could fly it in the lane. He crept out of bed, and tottered to the window.
The lane was very wet and slushy, and a nasty black gutter ran down it, and oozed out among the broken stones. There had been a heavy thunder-shower in the night, and as there was no foot pavement, and what stones there were, were very uneven and scattered, the black pools lodged among them, and altogether it seemed impossible for a boy to fly a kite there; for "how could he run along holding the string? he would tumble among the dirty pools. There were only four children to be seen in it now, out of all the numbers that lived in the houses, though it was a warm summer morning, and they were dabbling with naked feet in the mud, and their ragged clothes were all draggled. Mother would never let him and John do like that."
Still he stood, first examining the window, then looking at the kite; then putting his hand out through the broken pane, and pondered over a scheme that had entered his mind.
"John," he cried, as the door opened, "don't you think we could fly Harry's kite out of the broken pane?"
At first this idea seemed to John perfectly chimerical; but after some consultation and explanation a plan was devised between the two boys, to complete which they only waited for their mother's return. They expected her at one, for this was only half a day's work.
Jem
