and had never happened to play since. He sawed it right through
(the cold hand left after the first bar or two) standing up;
then still stood with fiddle and bow trembling in his hands,
with the queer feeling still on him, and a rush of old thoughts
going through his head, all of which he set down afterwards
to the effect of the heat. He put the fiddle away hastily,
damning the bridge of it at the same time in loud but hurried tones,
with the idea of covering any eccentricity which the wife might have noticed
in his actions. "Must 'a' got a touch o' sun," he muttered to himself.
He sat down, fumbled with knife, pipe, and tobacco, and presently stole
a furtive glance over his shoulder at his wife.

The washed-out little woman was still sewing, but stitching blindly,
for great tears were rolling down her worn cheeks.

Johnny, white-faced on account of the heat, stood close behind her,
one hand on her shoulder and the other clenched on the table;
but the clenched hand shook as badly as the loose one.

"Good God! What is the matter, Mary? You're sick!" (They had had
little or no experience of illness.) "Tell me, Mary -- come now!
Has the boys been up to anything?"

"No, Johnny; it's not that."

"What is it then? You're taken sick! What have you been doing with yourself?
It might be fever. Hold up a minute. You wait here quiet
while I roost out the boys and send 'em for the doctor and someone ----"

"No! no! I'm not sick, John. It's only a turn. I'll be all right