He put his head under the bedclothes as I went away with the candle. I was not long getting into bed either. The stars were bright in the sky. Before there was time to get to sleep, Dan came bursting in, shivering as on the past night, and asking to be let get into the bed. I did not mind his being in the bed--liked it rather, for company--but I did think it a great stupid pity that he should be giving way to these superstitious fears as though he were a girl. "Look here, Dan: I should be above it. One of the smallest of those Frogs couldn't show out more silly than this." "He's in my bed again, Johnny. Lying down. I can't sleep there another night." "You know that he is below in his coffin--with the room-door locked." "I don't care--he's there in the bed. You had no sooner gone with the light than King crept in and lay down beside me. He used to have a way of putting his left arm over me outside the clothes, and he put it so to-night." "Dan!" "I tell you he did. Nobody would believe it, but he did. I felt it like a weight. It was heavy, just as dead arms are. Johnny, if this goes on, I shall die. Have you heard what mamma says?" "No. What?" "She says _she_ saw King last night. She couldn't sleep; and by-and-by, happening to look out of bed, she saw him standing there. He was looking very solemn, and did not speak. She turned to awake papa, in spite of the way he goes on ridiculing such things, but when she looked next King had gone. I wish he was buried, Johnny; I shouldn't think he could come back into the house then. Should you?" "He's not in it now--in that sense. It's all imagination." "Is it! I should like you to have been in my bed, instead of me; you'd have seen whether it was imagination or not. Do you suppose his heavy arm across me was fancy?" "Well, he does not come in here. Let us go to sleep. Good-night, Dan." Dan lay still for a good bit, and I was nearly asleep when he awoke me sobbing. His face was turned the other way. "I wish you'd kill me, Johnny." "Kill you!" "I don't care to live any longer without King. It is so lonely. There's nobody now. Fred's getting to be almost a man, and Toby's a little duffer. King was best. I've many a time snubbed him and boxed him, and I always put upon him; and--and now he's gone. I wish I had fallen down instead of him." "You'll get over it, Dan." "Perhaps. But it's such a thing to get over. And the time goes so slowly. I wish it was this time next year!" "Do you know what some of the doctors say?" "What do they say?" returned Dan, putting the tip of his nose out of bed. "Dr. Teal told Captain Sanker of it; I was by and heard him. They think that poor King would not have lived above another year, or so: that there was no chance of his living to grow up. So you might have lost him soon in any case, Dan."