drink? Oh, well, what do I care if he don't! I threw that in about
drinks to make it as hard on him as possible. It makes a good point
on a man just to suggest it. There; there goes Robinson going to church
with a new suit on, and a wife hanging on his arm! What has he done
to deserve that sort of luck? Why, isn't he up here flat of his
back--and there they all go. Resigned? Ah, no, the sick are not
resigned. It is only the dead who are resigned.

* * * * *

A perfectly new friend is the Sky. How often does one in health look
at the Sky save to see about the weather? But once a year. But in
sickness it is an ever present friend. You watch for day breaks in it,
and for the fading stars, and find an exciting interest in which of
two stars will go out first, something like you were betting on a race.
And then the figures in the blue field all day long; for it is not at
evening and night alone that they appear. What have I not seen march
across my window in the procession--a castle, a fan, a swan, a kerosene
can, the king of spades, a cream jug, troops of angels, in short,
anything that an idle imagination wants to conjure up. And when it
dresses for the evening, in what glorious costumes does it appear. But
all that is garish compared with the Sky upon which the night has
settled down. That is the sort of Sky to bring calmness and content.
The quiet lighting up of the stars, with no step ladders and no hurried
match scratching of the police; the ease with which the moon climbs
up her route, no puffing, no machinery clanking; the deepening of the
blue to better show the celestial sparks that glow on it--and the
knowledge that all this will go on without failure and without your
having to turn over in bed to work some lever to help it move, makes
the coming of night a comfort to the sick. Who thinks of the stars in