THE CHINA MAIL THURSDAY SUPPLEMENT, APRIL 29, 1937
OUR BROTHER MARK
more mushrooms if Lucy and I had not kept so close to Mark when we were looking for them.
After breakfast, we gathered our books for school, and Mark came out and helped us on the horses. Then, as we rode down to the gate, he ran ahead of us and opened it. I don't think any- one ever ran as well as Mark did. He had won cups for running at school, and mother used to show them to the parson and other visitors. Sometimes Markused to come into the room when mo ther was showing them Mark's name on the cups, and he would look shy and go all red just like Lucy did when the visitors tried to kiss her.
When we came back through the gate in the afternoon we had a race up to the house, and then we slid off the horses and ran inside Mother stopped us in the kitchen.
"Don't make a noise!" she whispered, holding her right fore- finger to her lips.
We looked at her.
"Mark's asleep," she said, “he went in swimming after a duck- he had shot it and he's caught a chill. He's in bed."
"He's sick?" Lucy asked.
I could feel a knot in my throat. "Yes," mother said, “you can see him when he wakes up."
Mark must have heard us, be- cause he called out:
"I'm all right! Peter, Lucy!”** We ran in. Mark was in bed with one arm outside the blankets. There was something funny about his eyes, and sometimes while he was smiling he would shiver aud- denly, and, although he tried not to, he could not help frowning. Lucy and I talked to him for a while, and then, when mother hurried us outside, we went and sat on the well covering. Lucy did not say anything when I began throwing at the frogs.
Mark was no better in the morn- ing, and mother would not let us go and see him.
"We must let him get a little sleep," she said, "he tossed all night."
DU
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* URING the next week he be- came worse, and father had to drive to town for the doctor. When the doctor came out he said that Mark was very ill, and that he might die, as he had pleurisy. He was dangerously ill for days- we could only see him for a few minutes, peeping in at the door and then he began to get bet- ter. He never got really well though..
"He'll never be the same again,” I heard the doctor tell father, "he'll always be an invalid.”
When I heard this I went to look for Lucy, but I couldn't tell her.
But I think she knew. When he was able to get out of bed Mark used to sit in a chair by the window, where he could look at the garden and at the tennis court beyond. Father had to help him to dress and then carry him across to the chair. Mark used to laugh because of this.
"What a helpless person I am,” he would say.
HR
*
E did not get any stronger as the days passed but seem- ed to become weaker. His face
was thinner, and sometimes we noticed he looked so longingly to-
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wards the tennis court that Lucy and I would not play there until he asked us to do 30. While we were playing we could see him at the window, and when we looked in his direction he would wave back at us.
He became so weak that father and mother had to fill and light his pipe for him, and then I knew that Mark was dying. Mark knew that, too. Mother used to worry a lot about Mark, and one day he said:
"That tennis court netting wants fixing!
I think I'll go out and dig a few postholes there to- morrow."
When I followed mother out into the kitchen she said:
-
"Mark must be getting better!" Her eyes were dancing. It hurt me because when mother had left the room, Mark, had said to father:
*I'll never hole!"
Mark didn't think that I heard. Father did not say anything, 30 he must have known all along. The doctor must have told him. Lucy had heard the doctor say. something to father, and father had looked very sad.
dig another post-
Mark used to cough a lot. He would be joking
me
and thenh Lucy and
would begin coughing. It used to hurt him, and he would double up. Lucy
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and I used to look away because he did not like to see our pity.
He used to love the garden. Every day Lucy and I used to pick flowers for him. He liked all flowers. He said the pansies had funny squat faces and that snapdragons always looked hun- gry. We used to laugh a lot when he said things like that. He loved wild flowers above all others. Lucy and I used to gather great armfuls for him bluebells, dandelions, scarlet poppies, ever- lastings, buttercups.
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He used to tell us wonderful stories about the wild flowers, and Lucy and I would sit and lis- ten until mother became quite impatient when we were sitting cross-legged on the floor long after our bed time. I think she enjoyed the stories as much as I did.
From day to day Mark became weaker until the time came when the doctor would not allow him to get up. Lucy and I could only see him for a few minutes each day, and one day after the doc- tor. had been speaking to her I noticed that mother was crying.
Father and mother did not say anything to Lucy and I, but they were aware that we knew that. Mark was dying. Mark was cheerful all the time, and he was always thinking out new stories to tell us. His congh was worse. He was suffering a lot. His face
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had wasted away and his eyes were very bright.
One day, when the doctor came out of Mark's room, he said to father:
"There
pain."
won't be much more
And father said: “Thank God!” Mother cried when Iran and told her. One early morning, a few days after the doctor had been out, I woke up and saw mother standing by my bed. She had wrapped a coat over her night-dress, and she was. hold- ing Lucy by the hand: Lucy's eyes were very wide open and steady, and mother's were swol- len a little I think she had been crying.
"Peter!" mother said, "come and say good-bye to Mark.”
I got out of bed and Lucy took my hand, and we went into Mark's room. Father was there. Mark did not know us, at first. He kissed us when we bent over him and whispered what good times we had had. When mother bent over him for the second time she sobbed, sharply. Father said something to her. I felt Lucy's hand in mine, and she took hold of my hand and led me outside.
We didn't speak to one an other, but hand in hand we went down to the edge of the swamps and gathered armfuls of
wild. flowers and took them back and laid them on Mark's bed.