But Wayne insisted on waiting a little longer, and June rubbed the lame and achy spots and doubled the doses and, sure enough, after a most wretched night, Wayne felt better in the morning. The nights were always the worst, for, while he slept for an hour now and then during the day, at night he was always wakeful. Illness always seems worse at night, anyway, and there was no exception in Wayne’s case. Poor June was driven nearly to his wits’ end some nights. Wayne was not, I fear, a very patient patient. He had never been as sick before in all his life and he resented it now forcibly and seemed inclined to hold June in some way accountable for it. But that was only when he had really begun to get better, and June was so thankful for his recovery that he bore the other’s crankiness quite cheerfully. All things come to an end, and one day--it happened to be a Sunday--Wayne got up for the first time and ate some real food. June had been trying to entice him with soup and gruel and similar things which Wayne unkindly termed “hog-wash” for two days with little success, but today Wayne consumed a lamb chop and two slices of toast and a cup of tea with gusto. And after it he went to sleep again and awoke in the afternoon quite himself, save for an astonishing wabbliness in his legs. The next day he was out on the “front porch” in the warm sunlight when June departed to town, and still later he walked around some, to Sam’s vociferous delight, and cooked some lunch for himself and discovered a returning interest in the garden. And the next day he reported to Mr. Callahan for work again and was curtly informed that his place had been given to someone else. As June had visited the stable and told the liveryman of Wayne’s illness as soon as it became evident that the latter couldn’t go to work, and as Mr. Callahan had given June to understand that the position would be kept open, Wayne was too astounded to even make a reply, and it wasn’t until he was a full block away that it occurred to him to be either indignant or disappointed. And then, as neither indignation nor disappointment promised any relief, he tried his best to swallow them and put his mind on the problem of finding other work. There was another livery stable in town that he knew of, and there might be still more that he didn’t know of, and, while driving a carriage wasn’t at all his idea of a satisfactory occupation, it brought money to his pocket and enabled him to live, and whereas he had not been particularly interested in living four days ago, today he was convinced that it was not only desirable but delightful. There is at least this to be said for an illness: after it is through with you it leaves you with a greater appreciation of life.