If he held out for four months more, the first great stage in their life
--journey would be passed, the stake won.
"I saw a woman get an awful fall once," Jim said suddenly. "Her bones
were broken in twelve places, and there wasn't a spot on her body without
injury. They set and fixed up every broken bone except one. It was
split down. They didn't dare perform the operation; she couldn't stand
it. There was a limit to pain, and she had reached the boundary. Two
years went by, and she got better every way, but inside her leg those
broken pieces of bone were rubbing against each other. She tried to
avoid the inevitable operation, but nature said, 'You must do it, or
die in the end.' She yielded. Then came the long preparations for the
operation. Her heart shrank, her mind got tortured. She'd suffered too
much. She pulled herself together, and said, 'I must conquer this
shrinking body of mine, by my will. How shall I do it?' Something
within her said, 'Think and do for others. Forget yourself.' And so,
as they got her ready for her torture, she visited hospitals, agonised
cripple as she was, and smiled and talked to the sick and broken, telling
them of her own miseries endured and dangers faced, of the boundary of
human suffering almost passed; and so she got her courage for her own
trial.
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