you could scarce have told how or why.

"Father," said the boy, his face pinched with pain for a moment, "it
hurts so, all over, every once in a while."

His fingers caressed the leg just below the knee.

"Father," he suddenly added, "what does it mean when you hear a bird
sing in the middle of the night?"

The woodsman looked down anxiously into the boy's face. "It hasn't no
meaning, Dominique. There ain't such a thing on the Labrador Heights as
a bird singin' in the night. That's only in warm countries where there's
nightingales. So--_bien sur!_"

The boy had a wise, dreamy, speculative look.

"Well, I guess it was a nightingale--it didn't sing like any I ever
heard."

The look of nervousness deepened in the woodman's face. "What did it
sing like, Dominique?"

"So it made you shiver. You wanted it to go on, and yet you didn't want
it. It was pretty, but you felt as if something was going to snap inside
of you."

"When did you hear it, my son?"

"Twice last night--and--and I guess it was Sunday the other time. I