came back again, as they have always been revived in desperate men. And Gant did not die that day. He lived on.
XXVII
By the middle of the month Gant had a desperate attack; for four days now he was confined to bed, he began to bleed out of the bowels, he spent four sleepless days and nights of agony, and with the old terror of death awake again and urgent, Helen telegraphed to Luke, who was in Atlanta, frantically imploring him to come home at once.
With the arrival of his son and under the stimulation of Luke’s vital and hopeful nature, the old man revived somewhat: they got him out of bed and into a new wheel-chair which they had bought for the purpose, and the day of his arrival Luke wheeled his father out into the bright June sunshine and through the streets of the town, where he again saw friends, and renewed acquaintances he had not known in years.
The next day Gant seemed better. He ate a good breakfast, by ten o’clock he was up and Luke had dressed him, got him into the new wheelchair and was wheeling him out on the streets again in the bright sunshine. All along the streets of the town people stopped and greeted the old man and his son, and in Gant’s weary old brain there may perhaps have been a flicker of an old hope, a feeling that he had come to life again.
“Wy-wy-wy-wy, he’s f-f-f-fine as silk!” Luke would sing out in answer to the question of some old friend or acquaintance, before his father had a chance to answer. “Aren’t you, C-C-C-Colonel? Wy-wy-wy-wy Lord God! Mr. P-p-p-p-parker, you couldn’t k-k-k-kill him with a wy-wy-wy-wy-wy with a b-b-butcher’s cleaver. He’ll be here when you and I bofe are p-p-p-pushing daisies.” And Gant, pleased, would smile feebly, puffing from time to time at a cigar in the unaccustomed, clumsy, and pitifully hopeful way sick men have.
Towards one o’clock Gant began to moan with pain again and to entreat his son to make haste and take him home. When they got back before the house, Luke brought the wheel chair to a stop and helped his father to get up. His stammering solicitude and over-extravagant offers of help served only to exasperate and annoy the old man who, still moaning feebly, and sniffling with trembling lip, said petulantly:
