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Reprinted Pieces by Charles Dickens
page 12 of 310 (03%)
coxswain goes back and is seen to sit down by his side, and neither
of the two shall be any more beheld until the great last day; but,
as the rest go on for their lives, they take the child with them.
The carpenter dies of poisonous berries eaten in starvation; and
the steward, succeeding to the command of the party, succeeds to
the sacred guardianship of the child.

God knows all he does for the poor baby; how he cheerfully carries
him in his arms when he himself is weak and ill; how he feeds him
when he himself is griped with want; how he folds his ragged jacket
round him, lays his little worn face with a woman's tenderness upon
his sunburnt breast, soothes him in his sufferings, sings to him as
he limps along, unmindful of his own parched and bleeding feet.
Divided for a few days from the rest, they dig a grave in the sand
and bury their good friend the cooper - these two companions alone
in the wilderness - and then the time comes when they both are ill,
and beg their wretched partners in despair, reduced and few in
number now, to wait by them one day. They wait by them one day,
they wait by them two days. On the morning of the third, they move
very softly about, in making their preparations for the resumption
of their journey; for, the child is sleeping by the fire, and it is
agreed with one consent that he shall not be disturbed until the
last moment. The moment comes, the fire is dying - and the child
is dead.

His faithful friend, the steward, lingers but a little while behind
him. His grief is great, he staggers on for a few days, lies down
in the desert, and dies. But he shall be re-united in his immortal
spirit - who can doubt it! - with the child, when he and the poor
carpenter shall be raised up with the words, 'Inasmuch as ye have
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