She leaned over the
footboard and laughed hysterically, her head in her arms. Jock
stared a moment in offended disapproval. Then the humor of it
caught him, and he buried his head in his pillow to stifle
unseemly shrieks. His legs kicked spasmodically beneath the
bedclothes.
As suddenly as she had begun to laugh Mrs. McChesney became very
sober.
"Stop it, Jock! Tell me, why weren't you sleeping?"
"I don't know," replied Jock, as suddenly solemn. "I--sort
of--began to think, and I couldn't sleep."
"What were you thinking of?"
Jock looked down at the bedclothes and traced a pattern with one
forefinger on the sheet. Then he looked up.
"Thinking of you."
"Oh!" said Emma McChesney, like a bashful schoolgirl. "Of--me!"
Jock sat up very straight and clasped his hands about his knees.
"I got to thinking of what I had said about having made good all
alone. That's rot. It isn't so. I was striped with yellow like a
stick of lemon candy. If I've got this far, it's all because of
you. I've been thinking all along that I was the original electric
self-starter, when you've really had to get out and crank me every
few miles."
Into Emma McChesney's face there came a wonderful look. It was the
sort of look with which a newly-made angel might receive her
crown and harp.
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