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-14-
  Buck kept this concealed as one would a dark past. To the family this added glory but to Buck embarrassment. A week or so after the film was finished Buck was confined to bed. He must have had a presentment for he brought presents to his wife and baby and admitted he had been very ill for over a month. Little Buck had just been out of bed a few days when his Dad was down. For three months of steadily failing, the doctors diagnosed and treated every ailment which (underlined by hand) developed (end underlined) which started as pleurisy. After aspiriting, pneumonia followed, then after eight weeks of efforts to no avail, a distended abdomen continuing, he was removed to the nearest hospital two towns away in an effort to locate pus foci. With all due credit to the doctors and the wonderful nurse, efforts seemed futile. Finally the poison entered the heart.
  In the meanwhile the bills had to be paid. Various neighbors took more or less care of little five-year old Buck, not yet well and whose little spirit felt the tragedy of the household. A new tea house restaurant was being started a block down the street. The hostess offered Hattie a job at fifteen dollars a week. This was the straw to the drowning. Buck's mother paid the nurse, Buck's Dad [typed over] hospital expenses. By going to work at 10:30 A.M. and working until 9 or 10 that night with little Buck kindly allowed to heat his meals with Hattie in the restaurant kitchen, Hattie was able to not relinguish home entirely. Call it foolish pride or what you will, to wait (handwritten in the margins) and 8 (good guess?) (end) table to the same women with whom one had been a social equal, was one of the hardest fences Hattie had to hurdle. Her love for Buck, however, recognized no obstacles and so that he wouldn't sense the hurt to pride, (even calls in foolish pride,) she pretended to be assisting in a rather important position. Everybody was kind. Kindness can become a crucible. After work there was a train which could be caught (inasmuch as the usually plucky girl who lived with Weavers cares for Little Buck evenings) (handwritten) + let Hattie get (end handwritten) to the hospital a couple of towns away (crossed out) and Hattie (end) (handwritten) where she (end) could check up on Buck's condition. 
  Buck became so ill he was breathing in a small area, seemingly just in his throat. Two breathless spells nearly took (handwritten) him (end) and Sam hurried from Troy, Ohio, where he and Clayt were building Wacos, re-incorporated under the name of The Advance Aircraft Company, incorporated under a Massachusetts charter. Sam said later that all the was he watched a certain cloud and he knew that if that cloud got past the telephone poles ahead of the train, Buck would live. He said the cloud never got past the poles. Buck seemed to cling to Sam, who sat with him through one (handwritten) particularly (end) terrible day while Hattie remained on her job, feeling as if another self were watching her beloved. Buck asked three favors which Hattie recognized as final requests. One to have Little Buck's