See, mother dear!"
He displayed a handful of coin, but she did not notice him. He looked at
her through the gloom of the twilight, and a feeling of terrible awe
stole over him. He crept to her side, and touched her cheek with his
finger. It was cold as ice. A mortal pallor overspread his face; the
pennies and the flowers rolled unheeded to the floor.
"Dead! dead! My mother is dead!" he cried.
He did not display any of the passionate grief which is natural to
childhood--there were no tears in his feverish eyes. He took her cold
hand in his own, and stood there all night long, smoothing back the
beautiful hair, and talking to her as one would talk to a sick child.
It was thus that Mat Miller found him the next morning. Mat was a little
older than himself--a street-sweeper also. She and Arch had always been
good friends; they sympathized with each other when bad luck was on them,
and they cheered lustily when fortune smiled.
"Hurrah, Arch!" cried Mat, as she burst into the room; "it rains again,
and we shall get a harvest! Good gracious, Arch! is--your--mother--dead?"
"Hush!" said the boy, putting down the cold hand; "I have been trying to
warm her all night, but it is no use. Only just feel how like ice my
hands are. I wish I was as cold all over, and then they would let me stay
with my mother.
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