If she happened to be absent from his room more than a few moments, when he was awake, he would insist upon her being called back.
But though Oscar would not allow his mother to leave him, she did not suit him much better than the other members of the family.

It was with considerable difficulty that she could coax him to take the medicines the doctor had ordered.

Then she was obliged to deny him all forms of nourishment, except a little gum-arabic water,--an arrangement at which he complained a good deal.
Oscar's fever continued to run for more than a week, the violence of the disease increasing from day to day.

Then a favorable change took place, and the doctor told him the fever had turned, and he was getting better.

For a day or two before this, however, he was very ill; so ill, indeed, that he submitted to whatever the doctor ordered, without a word of complaint.