unpard—”
“Nevermind that! I don’t care. I don’t care anything about it. It’s my
own fault. I stopped and listened. I couldn’t help it. It means so much
to me. You can’t know. No man can understand. Is it true that I—that my
face—”
Oren Taylor was an artist in more than his art: he possessed the rare
sense of the fit thing to do and say.
“It is true,” he answered quietly, “that I have seen few faces more
justly and beautifully modeled than yours.”
“And you,” she said, whirling upon Dr. Strong. “Can you do what you
said? Can you make me good-looking?”
“Not I. But you yourself can.”
“Oh, how? What must I do? D—d—don’t think me a fool!” She was
half-sobbing now. “It may be silly to long so bitterly to be beautiful.
But I’d give anything short of life for it.”
“Not silly at all,” returned Dr. Strong emphatically. “On the contrary,
that desire is rooted in the profoundest depths of sex.”
“And is the best excuse for art as a profession,” said the painter,
smiling.
“Only tell me what to do,” she besought. “Gently,” said Dr. Strong. “It
can’t be done in a day. And it will be a costly process.”
“That doesn’t matter. If money is all—”
“It isn’t all. It’s only a drop in the bucket. It will cost you dear in
comfort, in indulgence, in ease, in enjoyment, in habit—”
“I’ll obey like a child.” Again her hands went tremulously out to him;
then she covered her face with them and burst into the tears of nervous
exhaustion.
“This is no place for me,” said the artist, and was about to escape by
the door, when Mrs. Clyde blocked his departure.
“Ah, you are in here,” she said gayly. “I’d been wondering—Why, what’s
the matter? What is it?”
“There has been an unfortunate blunder,” said Dr. Strong quickly. “I
said some foolish things which Miss Ennis overheard—”
“No,” interrupted the painter. “The fault was mine—” And in the same
breath Louise Ennis cried:—
“I didn’t overhear! I listened. I eavesdropped.”
“Are you quite mad, all of you?” demanded the hostess. “Won’t somebody
tell me what has happened?”
“It’s true,” said the girl wildly; “every word they said. I _am_ a
mess.”
Mrs. Clyde’s arms went around the girl. Sex-loyalty raised its war
signal flaring in her cheeks.
“_Who_ said that?” she demanded, in a tone of which Dr. Strong observed
afterward, “I never before heard a woman roar under her breath.”
“Never mind who said it,” retorted the girl. “It’s true anyway. It
wasn’t meant to hurt me. It didn’t hurt me. He is going to cure me; Dr.
Strong is.”
“Cure you, Louise? Of what?”
“Of ugliness. Of hideousness. Of being a mess.”
“But, my dear,” said the older woman softly, “you mustn’t take it to
heart so, the idle word of some one who doesn’t know you at all.”
“You can’t understand,” retorted the other passionately. “You’ve always
been pretty!”
“A compliment straight from the heart,” murmured the painter.
The color came into Mrs. Clyde’s smooth cheek again. “What have you
promised her, Dr. Strong?” she asked.
“Nothing. I have simply followed Mr. Taylor’s lead. His is the artist
eye that can see beauty beneath disguises. He has told Miss Ennis that
she was meant to be a beautiful woman. I have told her that she can be
what she was meant to be if she wills, and wills hard enough.”
“And you will take charge of her case?” asked Mrs. Clyde.
“That, of course, depends upon you and Mr. Clyde. If you will include
Miss Ennis in the family, my responsibilities will automatically extend
to her.”
“Most certainly,” said Mrs. Clyde. “And now, Mr. Taylor,” she added,
answering a look of appeal from that uncomfortable gentleman, “come and
see the sketches. I really believe they are Whistler’s.”
As they left, Dr. Strong looked down at Louise Ennis with a smile.
“At present I prescribe a little cold water for those eyes,” said he.
“And then some general conversation in the drawing-room. Come here
tomorrow at four.”
“No,” said she. “I want to begin at once.”
“So as to profit by the impetus of the first enthusiasm? Very well. How
did you come here this evening?”
“In my limousine.”
“Sell it.”
“Sell my new car? At this time of year?”
“Store it, then.”
“And go about on street-cars, I suppose?”
“Not at all. Walk.”
“But when it rains?”
“Run.”
Eagerness died out of Louise Ennis’s face. “Oh, I know,” she said
pettishly. “It’s that old, old exercise treatment. Well, I’ve tried
that, and if you think—”
She stopped in surprise, for Dr. Strong, walking over to the door, held
the portière aside.
“After you,” he said courteously.
“Is that all the advice you have for me?” she persisted.
“After you,” he repeated.
“Well, I’m sorry,” she said sulkily. “What is it you want me—”
“Pardon me,” he interrupted in uncompromising tones. “I am sure they
are waiting for us in the other room.”
“You are treating me like a spoiled child,” declared Miss Ennis,
stamping a period to the charge with her high French heel.
“Precisely.”
She marched out of the room, and, with the physician, joined the rest
of the company. For the remainder of the evening she spoke little to
any one and not at all to Dr. Strong. But when she came to say
good-night he was standing apart. He held out his hand, which she could
not well avoid seeing.
“When you get up to-morrow,” he said, “look in the mirror, [she winced]
and say, ‘I can be beautiful if I want to hard enough.’ Good-bye.”
Luncheon at the Clydes’ next day was given up to a family discussion of
Miss Louise Ennis, precipitated by Mr. Clyde, who rallied Dr. Strong on
his newest departure.
“Turned beauty doctor, have you?” he taunted good-humoredly.
“Trainer, rather,” answered Dr. Strong.
“You might be in better business,” declared Mrs. Sharpless, with her
customary frankness. “Beauty is only skin-deep.”
“Grandma Sharpless’s quotations,” remarked Dr. Strong to the
saltcellar, “are almost as sure to be wrong as her observations are to
be right.”
“It was a wiser man than you or I who spoke that truth about beauty.”
“Nonsense! Beauty only skin-deep, indeed! It’s liver-deep anyway. Often
it’s soul-deep. Do you think you’ve kept your good looks, Grandma
Sharpless, just by washing your skin?”
“Don’t you try to dodge the issue by flattery, young man,” said the old
lady, the more brusquely in that she could see her son-in-law grinning
boyishly at the mounting color in her face. “I’m as the Lord made me.”
“And as you’ve kept yourself, by clean, sound living. Miss Ennis isn’t
as the Lord made her or meant her. She’s a mere parody of it. Her basic
trouble is an ailment much more prevalent among intelligent people than
they are willing to admit. In the books it is listed under various
kinds of hyphenated neurosis; but it’s real name is fool-in-the-head.”
“Curable?” inquired Mr. Clyde solicitously.
“There’s no known specific except removing the seat of the trouble with
an axe,” announced Dr. Strong. “But cases sometimes respond to less
heroic treatment.”
“Not this case, I fear,” put in Mrs. Clyde. “Louise will coddle herself
into the idea that you have grossly insulted her. She won’t come back.”
“Won’t she!” exclaimed Mrs. Sharpless. “Insult or no insult, she would
come to the bait that Dr. Strong has thrown her if she had to crawl on
her knees.”
Come she did, prompt to the hour. From out the blustery February day
she lopped into the physician’s pleasant study, slumped into a chair,
and held out to him a limp left hand, palm up and fingers curled.
Ordinarily the most punctilious of men, Dr. Strong did not move from
his stance before the fire. He looked at the hand.
“What’s that for?” he inquired.
“Aren’t you going to feel my pulse?”
“No.”
“Nor take my temperature?”
“No.”
“Nor look at my tongue?”
“Certainly not. I have a quite sufficient idea of what it looks like.”
The tone was almost brutal. Miss Ennis began to whimper.
“I’m a m—m—mess, I know,” she blubbered. “But you needn’t keep telling
me so.”
“A mess can be cleared up,” said he more kindly, “under orders.”
“I’ll do whatever you tell me, if only—”
“Stop! There will be no ‘if’ about it. You will do as you are bid, or
we will drop the case right here.”
“No, no! Don’t drop me. I will. I promise. Only, please tell me what is
the matter with me.”
Dr. Strong, smiling inwardly, recalled the diagnosis he had announced
to the Clydes, but did not repeat it.
“Nothing,” he said.
“But I know there must be. I have such strange symptoms. You can’t
imagine.”
Fumbling in her hand-bag she produced a very elegant little notebook
with a gold pencil attached. Dr. Strong looked at it with fascinated
but ominous eyes.
“I’ve jotted down some of the symptoms here,” she continued, “just as
they occurred. You see, here’s Thursday. That was a heart attack—”
“Let me see that book.”
She handed it to him. He carefully took the gold pencil from its socket
and returned it to her.
“Now, is there anything in this but symptoms? Any addresses that you
want to keep?”
“Only one: the address of a freckle and blemish remover.”
“We’ll come to that later. Meantime—” He tossed the book into the heart
of the coal fire where it promptly curled up and perished.
“Why—why—why—” gasped the visitor,—“how dare you? What do you mean?
That is an ivory-bound, gold-mounted book. It’s valuable.”
“I told you, I believe, that the treatment would be expensive. This is
only the beginning. Of all outrageous, unforgivable kinds of
self-coddling, the hypochondria that keeps its own autobiography is the
worst.”
Regrettable though it is to chronicle, Miss Ennis hereupon emitted a
semi-yelp of rage and beat the floor with her high French heels.
Instantly the doctor’s gaze shifted to her feet. Just how it happened
she could not remember, but her right foot, unprotected, presently hit
the floor with a painful thump, while the physician contemplated the
shoe which he had deftly removed therefrom.
“Two inches and a half at least, that heel,” he observed. “Talk about
the Chinese women torturing their feet!” He laid the offending article
upon the hearth, set his own soundly shod foot upon it, and tweaked off
two inches of heel with the fire-tongs. “Not so pretty,” he remarked,
“but at least you can walk, and not tittup in that. Give me the other.”
Shocked and astounded into helplessness, she mechanically obeyed. He
performed his rough-and-ready repairs, and handed it back to her.
“Speaking of walking,” he said calmly, “have you stored your automobile
yet?”
“No! I—I—I—”
“After to-morrow I don’t want you to set foot in it. Now, then, we’re
going to put you through a course of questioning. Ready?”
Miss Ennis settled back in her chair, with the anticipatory expression
of one to whom the recital of her own woe is a lingering pleasure.
“Perhaps if I told you,” she began, “just how I feel—”
“Never mind that. Do you drink?”
“No!” The answer came back on the rebound. “Humph!” Dr. Strong leaned
over her. She turned her head away.
“You asked me as if you meant I was a drunkard,” she complained. “Once
in a while, when I have some severe nervous strain to undergo, I need a
stimulant.”
“Oh. Cocktail?”
“Yes. A mild one.”
“A mild cocktail! That’s a paradox I’ve never encountered. How often do
you take these mild cocktails?”
“Oh, just occasionally.”
“Well, a meal is an occasion. Before meals?”
“Sometimes,” she admitted reluctantly.
“You didn’t have one here last night.”
“No.”
“And you ate almost nothing.”
“That is just it, you see. I need something: otherwise I have no
appetite.”
“In other words, you have formed a drink habit.”
“Oh, Dr. Strong!” It was half reproach, half insulted innocence, that
wail.
“After a cocktail—or two—or three,” he looked at her closely, but she
would not meet his eyes, “you eat pretty well?”
“Yes, I suppose so.”
“And then go to bed with a headache because you’ve stimulated your
appetite to more food than your run-down mechanism can rightly handle.”
“I do have a good many headaches.”
“Do anything for them?”
“Yes. I take some harmless powders, sometimes.”
“Harmless, eh? A harmless headache powder is like a mild cocktail. It
doesn’t exist. So you’re adding drug habit to drink habit. Fortunately,
it isn’t hard to stop. It has begun to show on you already, in that
puffy grayness under the eyes. All the coal-tar powders vitiate the
blood as well as affect the heart. Sleep badly?”
“Very often.”
“Take anything for that?”
“You mean opiates? I’m not a fool, Doctor.”
“You mean you haven’t gone quite that far,” said the other grimly.
“You’ve started in on two habits; but not the worst. Well, that’s all.
Come back when you need to.”
Miss Ennis’s big, dull eyes opened wide. “Aren’t you going to give me
anything? Any medicine?”
“You don’t need it.”
“Or any advice?”
Dr. Strong permitted himself a little smile at the success of his
strategy. “Give it to yourself,” he suggested. “You showed, in flashes,
during the dinner talk last night, that you have both wit and sense,
when you choose to use them. Do it now.”
The girl squirmed uncomfortably. “I suppose you want me to give up
cocktails,” she murmured in a die-away voice.
“Absolutely.”
“And try to get along with no stimulants at all?”
“By no means. Fresh air and exercise ad lib.”
“And to stop the headache powders?”
“Right; go on.”
“And to stop thinking about my symptoms?”
“Good! I didn’t reckon on your inherent sense in vain.”
“And to walk where I have been riding?”
“Rain or shine.”
“What about diet?”
“All the plain food you want, at any time you really want it, provided
you eat slowly and chew thoroughly.”
“A la Fletcher?”
“Horace Fletcher is one of those fine fanatics whose extravagances
correct the average man’s stolid stupidities. I’ve seen his fad made
ridiculous, but never harmful. Try it out.”
“And you won’t tell me when to come back?”
“When you need to, I said. The moment the temptation to break over the
rules becomes too strong, come. And—eh—by the way—eh—don’t worry about
your mirror for a while.” Temporarily content with this, the new
patient went away with new hope. Wiping his brow, the doctor strolled
into the sitting-room where he found the family awaiting him with
obvious but repressed curiosity.
“It isn’t ethical, I suppose,” said Mr. Clyde, “to discuss a patient’s
case with outsiders?”
“You’re not outsiders. And she’s not my patient, in the ordinary sense,
since I’m giving my services free. Moreover, I need all the help I can
get.”
“What can _I_ do?” asked Mrs. Clyde promptly. “Drop in at her house
from time to time, and cheer her up. I don’t want her to depend upon me
exclusively. She has depended altogether too much on doctors in the
past.”
Mr. Clyde chuckled. “Did she tell you that the European medical faculty
had chased her around to every spa on the Continent? Neurasthenic
dyspepsia, they called it.”
“Pretty name! Seventy per cent of all dyspeptics have the seat of the
imagination in the stomach. The difficulty is to divert it.”
“What’s your plan?”
“Oh, I’ve several, when the time comes. For the present I’ve got to get
her around into condition.”
“Spoiled mind, spoiled body,” remarked Mrs. Sharpless.
“Exactly. And I’m going to begin on the body, because that is the
easiest to set right. Look out for an ill-tempered cousin during the
next fortnight.”
His prophecy was amply confirmed by Mrs. Clyde, who made it her
business, amid multifarious activities, to drop in upon Miss Ennis with
patient frequency. On the tenth day of the “cure,” Mrs. Clyde reported
to the household physician:—
“If I go there again I shall probably _slap_ her. She’s become simply
unbearable.”
“Good!” said Dr. Strong. “Fine! She has had the nerve to stick to the
rules. We needn’t overstrain her, though. I’ll have her come here
tomorrow.”
Accordingly, at six o’clock in the evening of the eleventh day, the
patient stamped into the office, wet, bedraggled, and angry.
“Now look!” she cried. “You made me store my motor-car. All the
street-cars were crowded. My umbrella turned inside out. I’m a perfect
drench. And I know I’ll catch my death of cold.” Whereupon she laid a
pathetic hand on her chest and coughed hollowly.
“Stick out your foot,” ordered Dr. Strong. And, as she obeyed: “That’s
well. Good, sensible storm shoes. I’ll risk your taking cold. How do
you feel? Better?”
“No. Worse!” she snapped.
“I suppose so,” he retorted with a chuckle.
“What is more,” she declared savagely, “I look worse!”
“So your mirror has been failing in its mission of flattery. Too bad.
Now take off your coat, sit right there by the fire, and in an hour
you’ll be dry as toast.”
“An hour? I can’t stay an hour!”
“Why not?”
“It’s six o’clock. I must go home. Besides,” she added unguardedly,
“I’m half starved.”
“_Indeed!_ Had a cocktail to-day?”
“No. Certainly not.”
“Yet you have an appetite. A bad sign. Oh, a very bad sign—for the
cocktail market.”
“I’m so tired all the time. And I wake up in the morning with hardly
any strength to get out of bed—”
“Or the inclination? Which?” broke in the doctor.
“And my heart gives the queerest jumps and—”
“Thought we’d thrown that symptom-book into the fire. Stand up,
please.”
She stood. Dr. Strong noted with satisfaction how, already, the lithe
and well-set figure had begun to revert to its natural pose, showing
that the muscles were beginning to do their work. He also noted that
the hands, hitherto a mere _mélange_ of nervously writhing fingers,
hung easily slack.
“Your troubles,” he said pleasantly, “have only just begun. I think
you’re strong enough now to begin work.”
“I’m not,” she protested, half weeping. “I feel faint this minute.”
“Good, healthy hunger. Of course, if a glance in your mirror convinces
you that you’ve had enough of the treatment—”
Miss Ennis said something under her breath which sounded very much like
“Brute!”
“Have you ever had a good sweat?” he asked abruptly.
Her lips curled superciliously. “I’m not given to perspiration, I’m
thankful to—”
“Did I say ‘perspire’?” inquired he. “I understood myself to say
‘sweat.’ Have you ever—”
“No.”
“High time you began. Buy yourself the heaviest sweater you can
find—you may call it a ‘perspirationer’ if you think the salesman will
appreciate your delicacy—and I’ll be around to-morrow and set up a
punching-bag for you.”
“What is that?”
“A device which you strike at. The blow forces it against a board and
it returns and, unless you dodge nimbly, impinges upon your
countenance. In other words, whacks you on the nose. Prizefighters use
it.”
“I suppose you want me to be like a prizefighter.”
“The most beautiful pink-and-white skin and the clearest eye I’ve ever
seen belonged to a middleweight champion. Yes, I’d like to see you
exactly like him in that respect. One hour every day—”
“I simply can’t. I shan’t have time. With the walking I do now I’m busy
all the morning and dead tired all the afternoon; and in the evening
there is my bridge club—”
“Ah, you play bridge. For money?”
“Naturally we don’t play for counters.”
“Well, I’d give it up.”
“You are not employed as a censor of my morals, Dr. Strong.”
“No; but I’ve undertaken to censor your nerves. And gambling, for a
woman in your condition, is altogether too much of a strain.”
The corners of Miss Ennis’s mouth quivered babyishly. “I’m sure, then,
that working like a prizefighter will be too much strain. You’re
wearing me out.”
“I’m a cruel tyrant,” mocked Dr. Strong; “and worse is to come. We’ll
clear out a room in your house and put in not only the punching-bag,
but also pulleys and a rowing-machine. And I’ll send up an athletic
instructor to see that you use them.”
“I won’t have him. I’ll send him away!”
“By advice of your mirror?”
Miss Ennis frankly and angrily wept.
“Now I’ll tell you a secret about yourself.” Miss Ennis stopped
weeping.
“Ninety-nine cases out of a hundred I couldn’t handle as I am handling
your case. They would need a month’s rest and building up before they’d
be fit for real work. But you are naturally a powerful, muscular woman
with great physical endurance and resiliency. What I am trying to do is
to take advantage of your splendid equipment to pull you out.”
“What would you do with the ordinary case?” asked the girl, interested.
“Oh, put her to bed, perhaps. Perhaps send her away to the woods. Maybe
set a nurse over her to see that she didn’t take to writing her
symptoms down in a book. Keep her on a rigid diet, and build her up by
slow and dull processes. You may thank your stars that—”
“I don’t thank my stars at all!” broke in the patient, as her besetting
vice of self-pity asserted itself. “I’d much rather do that than be
driven like a galley-slave. I’m too tired to get any pleasure out of
anything—”
“Even bridge?” interposed the tormentor softly.
“—and when night comes I fall into bed like a helpless log.”
“That’s the best news I’ve heard yet. You’re progressing. Now take that
new appetite of yours home to dinner. And don’t spoil it by eating too
fast. Good-night.”
Fully a fortnight later Grandma Sharpless met Dr. Strong in the hallway
as he came in from a walk.
“What have you been doing to Louise Ennis?” she demanded.
“Lots of things. What’s wrong now? Another fit of the sulks?”
“Worse,” said the old lady in a stage whisper. “She’s got _paint_ on
her face.”
Dr. Strong laughed. “Really? It might be worse. In fact, as a symptom,
it couldn’t be better.”
“Young man, do you mean to tell me that face-paint is a good thing for
a young woman?”
“Oh, no. It’s vulgar and tawdry, as a practice. But I’m glad to know
that Miss Ennis has turned to it, because it shows that she recognizes
her own improvement and is trying to add to it.”
“But the stuff will ruin her skin,” cried the scandalized old lady.
“See what dreadful faces women have who use it. Look at the actresses—”
“Well, look at them!” broke in the physician. “There is no class of
women in the world with such beautiful skin as the women of the stage.
And that in spite of hard work, doubtful habits of eating, and
irregular hours. Do you know why?”
“I suppose you’ll tell me that paint does it,” said Mrs. Sharpless with
a sniff.
“Not the paint itself. But the fact that in putting it on and taking it
off, they maintain a profound cleanliness of skin which the average
woman doesn’t even understand. The real value of the successful
skin-lotions and creams so widely exploited lies in the massage which
their use compels.”
“Aside from the stuff on her face,” remarked Mrs. Sharpless, “Louise
looks like another woman, and acts like one. She came breezing in here
like a young cyclone.”
“Which means trouble,” sighed Dr. Strong. “Now that her vitality is
returning, it will demand something to feed on. Well, we shall see.”
He found his patient standing—not sitting, this time—before the
fireplace, with a face of gloom. Before he could greet her, she burst
out:—
“How long am I to be kept on the grind? I see nobody. I have nothing to
amuse me. I’ve had a row with father.” Dr. Strong smiled. “The servants
are impertinent.” The smile broadened. “The whole world is hateful!”
The doctor’s face was now expanded into a positive grin. “I despise
everything and everybody! I’m bored.”
“Passing that over for the moment for something less important,” said
Dr. Strong smoothly, “where do you buy your paint?”
“I don’t paint!” retorted the girl hotly.
“Well, your rouge. Your skin-rejuvenator. Your essence of bloom of
youth or whatever poetic name you call it by. Let me see the box.”
Mutiny shone from the scowling face, but her hand went to her reticule
and emerged with a small box. It passed to the physician’s hand and
thence to the fire. “I’ll use paint if I want to,” declared the girl.
“Undoubtedly. But you’ll use good paint if you use any. Get a
theatrical paper, read the ads, and send for the highest grade of
grease-paint. I won’t say anything about the vulgarity of the practice
because I’m not censoring your manners. I’ll only state that three
months from now you won’t want or need paint. Did you get this stuff,”
he nodded toward the fireplace whence issued a highly perfumed smoke,
“from that address in your deceased symptom-book?”
“Yes.”
“That was the firm which advertised to remove pimples, wasn’t it?”
Miss Ennis shrank. “Pimple is an inexcusable word,” she protested.
“Word? We’re dealing in realities now. And pimples were an inexcusable
reality in your case, because they were the blossoms of gluttony,
torpor, and self-indulgence.”
He leaned forward and looked closely at her chin. The surface, once
blotched and roughened, was now of a smooth and soft translucency. “You
once objected to the word ‘sweat,’” he continued. “Well, it has
eliminated the more objectionable word ‘pimple’ from your reckoning.
And it has done the job better than your blemish-remover—-which leaves
scars.”
Her hand went to her temple, where there was a little group of
silvery-white patches on the skin. “Can’t you fix that?” she asked
anxiously.
“No. Your ‘remover’ was corrosive sublimate. It certainly removed the
blemish. It would also have removed your entire face if you had used
enough of it. Nothing can restore what the liquid fire has burned away.
That’s the penalty you pay for foolish credulousness. Fortunately, it
is where it won’t show much.”
Gloom surged back into her face. “It doesn’t make any difference,” she
fretted. “I’m still a mess in looks even if I don’t feel so much like
one.”
“One half of looks is expression,” stated the doctor didactically. “I
don’t like yours. What’s your religion?”
His patient stared. “Why, I’m a Presbyterian, I suppose.”
“Humph! You suppose! It doesn’t seem to have struck in very hard. Any
objection to going to a Christian Science church?”
“Christian Science! I thought the regular doctors considered it the
worst kind of quackery.”
“The regular doctors,” returned Dr. Strong quickly, “once considered
anaesthesia, vaccination, and the germ theory as quackery. We live and
learn, like others. There’s plenty of quackery in Christian Science,
and also quite a little good. And nowadays we’re learning to accept the
good in new dogmas, and discard the bad.”
“And you really wish me to go to the Christian Science church?”
“Why not? You’ll encounter there a few wild fanatics. I’ll trust your
hard common sense to guard you against their proselytizing. You’ll also
meet a much larger number of sweet, gentle, and cheerful people, with a
sweet, helpful, and cheerful philosophy of life. That’ll help to cure
you.”
“And what will they cure me of, since you say I have no disease?”
“They’ll cure you of turning your mouth down at the corners instead of
up.”
At this, the mouth referred to did, indeed, turn up at the corners, but
in no very pleasant wise.
“You think they’ll amuse me?” she inquired contemptuously.
“Oh, as for amusement, I’ve arranged for that. You’re bored. Very well,
I expected it. It’s a symptom, and a good one, in its place. I’ll get
you a job.”
“Indeed! And if I don’t want a job?”
“No matter what you want. You need it.”
“Settlement work, I suppose.”
“Nothing so mild. Garbage inspection.”
“What!” Louise Ennis closed her eyes in expectation of a qualm of
disgust. The qualm didn’t materialize. “What’s the matter with me?” she
asked in naïve and suppressed chagrin. “I ought to feel—well,
nauseated.”
“Nonsense! Your nerves and stomach have found their poise. That’s all.”
“But what do I know about garbage?”
“You know it when you see it, don’t you? Now, listen. There has been a
strike of the city teamsters. Dr. Merritt, the Health Officer, wants
volunteers to inspect the city and report on where conditions are bad
from day to day. You’ve got intelligence. You can outwalk nine men out
of ten. And you can be of real service to the city. Besides, it’s
doctor’s orders.”
The story of Louise Ennis’s part in the great garbage strike, and of
her subsequent door-to-door canvass of housing conditions, has no place
in this account. After the start, Dr. Strong saw little of her; but he
heard much from Mrs. Clyde, who continued her frequent visits to the
Ennis household; not so much, as she frankly admitted, for the purpose
of furnishing bulletins to Dr. Strong, as because of her own growing
interest in and affection for the girl. And, as time went on, Strong
noticed that, on the occasions when he chanced to meet his patient on
the street, she was usually accompanied by one or another of the
presentable young men of the community, a fact which the physician
observed with professional approval rather than personal gratification.
“It isn’t her health alone,” said Mrs. Clyde, when they were discussing
her, one warm day in the ensuing summer. “These six months seem to have
made a new person of her. Trust the children to find out character.
Bettykins wants to spend half her time with Cousin Lou.”
“You’ve surely worked a transformation, Strong,” said Clyde. “But, of
course, the raw material was there. You couldn’t do much for the
average homely woman.”
“The average woman isn’t homely,” said Mrs. Clyde. “She’s got good
looks either spoiled or undeveloped.”
“Perfectly true,” confirmed Dr. Strong. “Any young woman whose face
isn’t actually malformed can find her place in the eternal scheme of
beauty if she tries. Nature works toward beauty in all matters of sex.
Where beauty doesn’t exist it is merely an error in Nature’s game.”
“Then the world is pretty full of errors,” said Mrs. Sharpless.
“Most of them aren’t Nature’s errors. They are the mistakes of the
foolish human. Take almost any woman, not past the age of development,
build up her figure to be supple and self-sustaining; give her a clear
eye, quick-moving blood, fresh skin, and some interest in the game of
life that shall keep mind and body alert—why, the radiant force of her
abounding health would make itself felt in a blind asylum. And all this
she can do for herself, with a little knowledge and a good deal of
will.”
“But that isn’t exactly beauty, is it?” asked Clyde, puzzled.
“Isn’t it? In the soundest sense, I think it is. Anyway, put it this
way: No woman who is wholly healthy, inside and out, can fail to be
attractive.”
“I wish that painter-man could see Louise now, as an example,” said
Grandma Sharpless.
“Oren Taylor?” said Mr. Clyde. “Why, he can. He goes East next week,
and I’ll wire him to stop over.”
Oren Taylor arrived late on a warm afternoon. As he crossed the lawn,
Louise Ennis was playing “catch” with Manny Clyde. Her figure swung and
straightened with the lithe muscularity of a young animal. Her cheek
was clear pink, deepening to the warmer color of the curved lips. The
blue veins stood out a little against the warm, moist temples from
which she brushed a vagrant lock of hair. Her eyes were wide and
lustrous with the eager effort of the play, for the boy was throwing
wide in purposeful delight over her swift gracefulness.
“Great Heavens!” exclaimed the artist, staring at her. “Who did that?”
“Strong did that,” explained Clyde; “as per specifications.”
“A triumph!” declared Taylor. “A work of art.”
“Oh, no,” said Dr. Strong; “a renewal of Nature.”
“In any case, a lady remade and better than new. My profound
felicitations, Dr. Strong.” He walked over to the flushed and lovely
athlete. “Miss Ennis,” he said abruptly, “I want your permission to
stay over to-morrow and sketch you. I need you in my ‘Poet’s Cycle of
the Months.’”
“How do you do, Mr. Taylor?” she returned demurely. “Of course you can
sketch me, if it doesn’t interfere with my working hours.” A quick
smile rippled across her face like sunlight across water. “The same
subject?” she asked with mischievous nonchalance.
“No. Not even the same season,” he replied emphatically, coloring, as
he bethought him of his “November, the withered mourner of glories dead
and gone.”
“What part am I to play now?”
“Let Dr. Strong name it,” said Taylor with quick tact. “He has prepared
the model.”
The girl turned to the physician, a little deeper tinge of color in her
face.
“Referred to Swinburne,” said Strong lightly, and quoted:—
“When the hounds of Spring are on Winter’s traces,
The mother of months in valley and plain
Fills the shadows and windy places
With lisp of leaves and ripple of rain.”
“Atalanta,” said Oren Taylor, bowing low to her; “the maiden spirit of
the spring.”
VII.
THE RED PLACARD
“Well?” questioned Mrs. Clyde, facing the Health Master haggardly, as
he entered the library.
“Oh, come!” he protested with his reassuring smile. “Don’t take it so
tragically. You’ve got a pretty sick-looking boy there. But any
thoroughgoing fever makes a boy of nine pretty sick.”
“What fever?” demanded the mother. “What is it?”
“Let’s start with what it isn’t—and thank Heaven. It isn’t typhoid. And
it isn’t diphtheria.”
“Then it’s—it’s—;”
“It’s scarlet fever,” broke in her mother, Mrs. Sharpless, who had
followed the doctor into the room. “That’s what it is.”
Mrs. Clyde shuddered at the name. “Has he got the rash?”
“No. But he will have to-morrow,” stated the old lady positively.
“Do you think so, too, Dr. Strong?” Mrs. Clyde appealed.
“I’ll accept Grandma Sharpless’s judgment,” answered the physician.
“She has seen more scarlet fever in her time than I, or most
physicians. And experience is the true teacher of diagnosis.”
“But you can’t be sure!” persisted Mrs. Clyde. “How can you tell
without the rash?”
“Not in any way that I could put into words,” said her mother. “But
there’s something in the look of the throat and something about the
eyes and skin—Well, I can’t describe it, but I know it as I know my own
name.”
“There speaks the born diagnostician,” observed the Health Master. “I’m
afraid the verdict must stand.”
“Then—then,” faltered Mrs. Clyde, “we must act at once. I’ll call up my
husband at the factory.”
“What for?” inquired Dr. Strong innocently. “Why, to let him know, of
course.”
“Don’t. When I undertook to act as Chinese-plan physician to the Clyde
household, I was not only to guard the family against illness as well
as I could, but also to save them worry. This is Saturday. Mr. Clyde
has had a hard, trying week in the factory. Why break up his day?”
Mrs. Clyde drew a long breath and her face lightened. “Then it isn’t a
serious case?”
“Scarlet fever is always serious. Any disease which thoroughly poisons
the system is. But there’s no immediate danger; and there shouldn’t be
much danger at any time to a sturdy youngster like Charley, if he’s
well looked after.”
“But the other children!” Mrs. Clyde turned to Mrs. Sharpless. “Where
can we send them, mother?”
“Nowhere.” It was the doctor who answered.
“Surely we can’t keep them in the house!” cried Mrs. Clyde. “They would
be certain to catch it from Charley.”
“By no means certain. Even if they did, that would not be the worst
thing that could happen.”
“No? What would, then?” challenged Grandma Sharpless.
“That they should go out of this house, possibly carrying the poison
with them into some other and defenseless community.” Dr. Strong spoke
a little sternly.
Neither woman replied for a moment. When Mrs. Clyde spoke, it was with
a changed voice. “Yes. You are right. I didn’t think. At least I
thought only of my own children. It’s hard to learn to think like a
mother of all children.”
“It’s as near to the divine as any human can come,” returned the Health
Master gently. “However, I think I can promise you that, if the twins
and Bettykin haven’t been touched with the poison already, they shan’t
get it from Charley. We’ll organize a defense—provided only the enemy
hasn’t established itself already. Now the question is, where did the
poison come from? We’ll have Junkum in and see if she can help us find
out.” Julia, the more efficient of the eleven-year-old twins, a shrewd
and observing youngster, resembling, in many respects, her grandmother,
came at the doctor’s summons and was told what had befallen Charley.
“Oh!” said Junkum. Then, “Can I nurse him?”
“I should think not!” burst out her mother and grandmother in a breath.
“Later on you can help,” said Dr. Strong. “In fact, I shall probably
need your help. Now, Junkum, you remember I told you children a month
ago that there was scarlet fever about and warned you to guard your
mouths and noses with special care. Can you recall whether Charley has
been careless?”
Miss Julia took the matter under consideration. “We’ve all been, I
guess,” she said. “Clara Wingate gave a party last week and there was
bobbing for apples, and everybody had their faces in the same tub of
water.”
“Yes; and Irving Wingate has since come down with scarlet fever,” added
Mrs. Clyde.
“Enough said!” asserted the Health Master. “I can’t think of any better
way to disseminate germs than an apple-bobbing contest. It beats even
kissing games. Well, the mischief is done.”
“Then they’ll all have it,” said Mrs. Clyde miserably.
“Oh, let’s hope not. Nothing is more mysterious than the way contagion
hits one and misses others. I should say there was at least an even
chance of the rest escaping. But we must regard them as suspects, and
report the house for quarantine.”
“Ugh!” shuddered Mrs. Clyde. “I hate that word. And think of my husband
coming home to find a flaming red placard on the house!”
“We’ll give him warning before he leaves the factory. And now for our
campaign. Item 1: a trained nurse. Item 2: a gas-range.”
“The trained nurse, certainly,” agreed Mrs. Clyde. “But why the
gas-range? Isn’t Charley’s room warm enough?”
“Quite. The stove isn’t for warmth; it’s for safety. I’m going to
establish a line of fire beyond which no contagion can pass. We’ll put
the stove in the hall, and keep on it a tin boiler full of water just
at the simmering point. Everything which Charley has used or touched
must go into that or other boiling water as soon as it leaves the room:
the plates he eats from, the utensils he uses; his handkerchiefs,
night-clothes, towels—everything.”
“That will be a hard regimen to keep up,” Mrs. Clyde objected.
“Martial law,” said the Health Master positively. “From the moment the
red placard goes up, we’re in a state of siege, and I’m in command. The
rules of the camp will be simple but strict. Whoever violates any of
them will be liable to imprisonment in the strictest quarantine. We’ll
have a household conference to-night and go over the whole matter. Now
I’m going to telephone the Health Department and ask Dr. Merritt to
come up and quarantine us officially.”
“But what of Charley?” exclaimed Mrs. Clyde. “You’re not going to keep
me away from my boy?”
“Not when you put it in that way and use that tone,” smiled Dr. Strong.
“I probably couldn’t if I tried. Under official quarantine rules you’ll
have to give up going anywhere outside the house. Under our local
martial law you’re not to touch Charley or anything that he handles,
nor to kiss the other children. And you’re to wash your hands every
time you come out of the sick-room, though it’s only to step beyond the
door.”
“It is an order,” said the mother gravely. “Will he be very ill, do you
think?”
“So far the cases have been mild. His is likely to be, too. But it’s
the most difficult kind of case to handle.”
“I don’t see that at all,” said Mrs. Sharpless.
“You will, when he becomes convalescent. Then is when my troubles will
begin. For the present the bulk of the work inside the sick-room will
be upon the trained nurse and Mrs. Clyde. I’ll have my troubles
outside, watching the rest of the family.”
Not since Dr. Strong came to the Clydes’ as guardian of their health
had there been an emergency meeting called of the Household Protective
Association, as the Health Master termed the organization which he had
formed (mainly for educative purposes) within the family. That evening
he addressed a full session, including the servants, holding up before
them the red placard which the Health Department had sent, and
informing them of the quarantine.
“No school?” inquired the practical-minded Bobs, “Hooray!”
“No school for you children, until further notice,” confirmed the
physician.
“And no business for me, I suppose,” said Mr. Clyde, frowning.
“Oh, yes. You can come and go as you please, so long as you keep away
from Charley’s room. Every one is barred from Charley’s room until
further instructions, except Mrs. Clyde; and she is confined within
military bounds, consisting of the house and yard. And now for the most
important thing—Rosie and Katie,”—the cook and the maid—“pay particular
heed to this—nothing of any kind which comes from the sick-room is to
be touched until it is disinfected, except under my supervision. When
I’m not in the house, the nurse’s authority will be absolute. Now for
the clinic; we’ll look over the throats of the whole crowd.”
Throat inspection appeared to be the Health Master’s favorite pursuit
for the next few days.
“I don’t dare open my mouth,” protested Bobs, “for fear he’ll peek into
it and find a spot.”
“Dr. Strong spends a lot more time watching us than he does watching
Charley,” remarked Junkum. “Who’s the sick one, anyway—us or him?” she
concluded, her resentment getting the better of her grammar.
“Ho!” jeered Bobs, and intoned the ancient couplet, made and provided
for the correction of such slips:—
“Her ain’t a-callin’ we,
Us don’t belong to she.”
“Anyhow, I ain’t sick,” asseverated Bettina; “but he shut me up in my
room for a day jus’ because my swallow worked kinda hard.”
“If I’m going to have scarlet fever I want to have scarlet fever and
get done with it!” declared.
Bobs. “I’m getting tired of staying out of school. Charley’s having all
the fun there is out of this, getting read to all the time by that
nurse and Mother.”
Meantime nothing of interest was happening in the sick-room.
Interesting phases seldom appear in scarlet fever, which is well,
since, when they do appear, the patient usually dies. Not at any time
did Charley evince the slightest tendency to forsake a world which he
had found, on the whole, to be a highly satisfactory place of
residence. In fact, he was going comfortably along through a typically
light onset of the disease; and was rather less ill than he would have
been with a sound case of measles. Already the furrows in Mrs. Clyde’s
forehead had smoothed out, and Grandma Sharpless had ceased waking, in
the dead of night, with a catch at her heart and the totally unfounded
fear that she had “heard something,” when one morning Charley awoke,
scratched a tiny flake of skin off his nose, yawned, and emitted a
hollow groan.
“What is it, Charley boy?” asked his mother.
“I’m tired of staying in bed,” announced the young man.
“How do you feel?”
The patient sat up, the better to consider the matter. “I feel,” he
stated in positive accents, “like a bucket of oyster stew, a steak as
big as my head, with onions all over it, a whole apple pie, a platter
of ice-cream, and a game of baseball.”
Mrs. Clyde laughed happily. “I’ll tell the Health Master,” she said.
She did, and Dr. Strong came up and looked the patient over carefully.
“You lie back there, young fellow,” he ordered, “and play sick, no
matter how well you feel, until I tell you different.”
“How about that beefsteak and pie, Doctor?” inquired the boy wistfully.
“Mere prospects,” retorted the hard-hearted physician. “But you can
have some ice-cream.” Conclave of the elders that evening to consider
the situation was opened by Dr. Strong.
“We’ve now reached the critical point,” he began.
“Critical?” gasped Mrs. Clyde, whose nerves had been considerably
stretched in the ten days of sick-room work. “Isn’t he getting well?”
“He’s getting well quite as quickly as I want him to. Perhaps a little
more quickly. The fever is broken and he is beginning to peel.”
“Then what’s the difficulty?” inquired Mr. Clyde.
“Just this. Charley is a sturdy boy. The light attack he’s had hasn’t
begun to exhaust his vitality. From now on, he is going to be a bundle
of energy, without outlet.”
“From now on till when?” It was Grandma Sharpless who wanted to know.
“Two weeks anyway. Perhaps more.”
“Are you going to keep that poor child in bed for two weeks after he’s
practically well?” said the mother.
“For three weeks if the whole family will help me. It’s not going to be
easy.”
“Isn’t that a little extreme, Strong?” asked Mr. Clyde.
“Only the precaution of experience. The danger-point in scarlet fever
isn’t the illness; it’s the convalescence. People think that when a
child is cured of a disease, he is cured of the effects of the disease
also. That mistake costs lives.”
“Because the poison is still in the system?”
“Rather, the effects of the poison. Though the patient may feel quite
well, the whole machinery of the body is out of gear. What do you do
when your machinery goes wrong, Clyde?”
“Stop it, of course.”
“Of course,” repeated the Health Master. “Obviously we can’t stop the
machinery of life, but we can ease it down to its lowest possible
strain, until it has had a chance to readjust itself. That is what I
want to do in Charley’s case.”
“How does this poison affect the system?”
“If I could discover that, I’d be sure of a place in history. All we
know is that no organ seems to be exempt from its sudden return attack
long after the disease has passed. If we ever get any complete records,
I venture to say that we’ll find more children dying in after years
from the results of scarlet fever than die from the immediate disease
itself, not to mention such after-effects as deafness and blindness.”
“I’ve noticed that,” said Grandma Sharpless, “when we lived in the
country. And I remember a verse on the scarlet-fever page of an old
almanac:—
If they run from nose or ear,
Watch your children for a year.
But I always set down those cases to catching cold.”
“Most people do. It isn’t that. It’s overstrain put on a poisoned
system. And it’s true not of scarlet fever alone, but of measles, and
diphtheria, and grippe; and, in a lesser degree, of whooping-cough and
chicken pox.”
“You’ve seen such cases in your own practice?” asked Mr. Clyde, and
regretted the question as soon as he had put it, for there passed over
Dr. Strong’s face the quick spasm of pain which anything referring back
to the hidden past before he had come to the Clyde house always
brought.
“Yes,” he replied with an effort. “I have had such cases, and lost
them. I might even say, killed them in my ignorance.”
“Oh, no, Dr. Strong!” said Mrs. Clyde in quick sympathy. “Don’t say
that. Being mistaken isn’t killing.”
“It is, sometimes, for a doctor. I remember one little patient who had
a very light case of scarlet fever. I let her get up as soon as the
fever broke. Three months later she developed a dropsical tendency. And
one day she fell dead across the doll she was playing with. The
official cause of death said heart disease. But I knew what it was. The
next case was not so wholly my fault. The boy was a spoiled child, who
held his parents in enslavement. They hadn’t the strength of character
to keep him under control. He insisted on riding his bicycle around the
yard, three days after he was out of bed. Against his willfulness my
protests were of no account. What I should have done is to have thrown
up the case; but I was young and the people were my friends. Well; that
boy made, apparently, a complete recovery. A few weeks later I was sent
for again. There was some kidney trouble. I knew, before the analysis
was made, what it would show: nephritis. The poison had struck to the
kidneys like a dagger. The poor little chap dragged along for some
months before he died; and his mother—God forgive me if I did wrong in
telling her the truth, as I did for the protection of their other
child—almost lost her reason.”
“And such cases are common?” asked Mr. Clyde.
“Common enough to be fairly typical. Afterward, I cited the two
instances in a talk before our medical society. My frankness encouraged
some of the other men to be frank; and the list of fatalities and
permanent disabilities, following scarlet fever and measles, which was
brought out at that meeting, nearly every case being one of rushing the
convalescence—well, it reformed one phase of medical procedure in—in
that city and county.”
“That settles it for Charley,” decided Mr. Clyde. “He stays in bed
until you certify him cured, if I have to hire a vaudeville show to
keep him amused.”
“My boy is not a spoiled child!” said Mrs. Clyde proudly. “I can handle
him.”
“Maybe he wasn’t before,” remarked Grandma Sharpless dryly; “but I
think you’ll have your hands full now.”
“Therefore,” said Dr. Strong, “I propose to enlist the services of the
whole family, including the children.”
“What! Let the others go to see Charley when he’s peeling?” protested
Mrs. Sharpless. “They’ll all catch it.”
“How?”
“Why, from the skin-flakes. That’s the way scarlet fever spreads.”
“Is it?” said the Health Master mildly. “Then perhaps you’ll explain to
me why doctors aren’t the greatest danger that civilization suffers
from.”
“I suppose they disinfect themselves,” said the old lady, in a rather
unconvinced tone.
“Let’s see how much that would amount to. The fine flakes of skin are
likely to be pretty well disseminated in a sick-room. According to the
old theory, every one of them is a potential disease-bearer. Now, a
doctor could hardly be in a sickroom without getting some of them on
his clothes or in his hair, as well as on his hands, which, of course,
he thoroughly washes on leaving the place. But that’s the extent of his
disinfection. Why don’t the flakes he carries with him spread the fever
among his other patients?”
“Don’t ask _me!_” said Clyde. “I’m not good at puzzles.”
“Many doctors still hold to the old theory. But I’ve never met one who
could answer that argument. Some of the best hospitals in the world
discharge patients without reference to the peeling of the skin, and
without evil results.”
“How is scarlet fever caught, then?” asked Mrs. Clyde.
“From the discharge from the inflamed nose and throat, or from the ears
if they are affected. Anything which comes in contact with this
poisonous mucus is dangerous. Thus, of course, the skin-flakes from the
lips or the hands which had been in contact with the mouth or nose
might carry the contagion, just as a fork or a tooth-brush or a
handkerchief might. Now, I’ll risk my status in this house on the
safety of letting the other children visit Charley under certain
restrictions.”
“That settles it for me,” said Mr. Clyde, whose faith in his friend,
while not unquestioning, was fundamental; and the two women agreed,
though not without misgivings. Thereupon Bobs, Julia, and Bettina were
sent for, and the Health Master announced that Charley would hold a
reception on the following afternoon. There were shouts of acclamation
at the prospect.
“But first,” added Dr. Strong, “there will be a rehearsal in the
playroom, to-morrow morning.”
“What do we need a rehearsal for to see Charley?” inquired Julia.
“To guard yourselves, Miss Junkum,” returned the doctor. “Possibly you
don’t know everything about scarlet fever that you should know. Do you,
Cherubic Miss Toots,” he added, turning upon Bettina, “know what a
contagious disease is?”
“I know,” said the diminutive maiden gravely, “that if you leave
Charley’s door open the jerrums will fly out and bite people.”
“Which fairly typifies the popular opinion concerning disease bacilli,”
observed Dr. Strong.
“I saw a jerrum once,” continued the infant of the family. “It was
under a stone in a creek. It had horns and a wiggly tail. Just like the
Devil,” she added with an engaging smile.
“Betty’s been looking at the pictures in the comic supplements,”
explained her elder sister.
“Popular education by the press!” commented Dr. Strong. “Well, I
haven’t time for an exposition of the germ theory now. The point is
this: Can you children stay an hour in Charley’s room without putting a
lot of things in your mouths?”
“Why, I never put anything in my mouth. You taught us better than
that,” said Julia reproachfully.
The doctor was little impressed by the reproach. “Humph!” he grunted.
“Well, suppose you stop nibbling at your hair”—Julia’s braid flew back
over her shoulder—“and consider that, when you put your fingers in your
mouth, you may be putting in, also, a particle of everything that your
fingers have touched. And in Charley’s room there might be jerrums, as
Twinkles calls them, from his mouth which would be dangerous. Rehearsal
at noon tomorrow.”
Expectant curiosity brought the children early to the playroom whither
they found that the Health Master had preceded them.
“When’s it going to begin?” asked Bettina.
“Presently,” replied the master of ceremonies. “We’re going to pretend
that this is Charley’s room. Just at present I’m busy with some work.”
He shook a notebook at them. “Go ahead and amuse yourselves till I get
through.”
Julia the observant noted three hues of crayon on the stand beside the
doctor. “Are you going to make a sketch?” she inquired.
“Never you mind. You attend to your affairs and I’ll attend to mine.”
“Dr. Strong is a-goin’ to make a picture of a jerrum,” Bettina informed
her favorite doll, Susan Nipper, imprinting a fervent kiss on the pet’s
flattened face. “Come on an’ let’s read the paper.”
Dr. Strong made a note in his book, with a pencil.
“Want to play catch, Junkum?” suggested Bobs to his twin.
“All right,” said Julia, seizing upon a glove, while Bobs, in his rôle
of pitcher, professionally moistened the ball.
Dr. Strong made another note.
For half an hour they disported themselves in various ways while the
Health Master, whose eyes were roving everywhere, made frequent entries
in his book.
“All out now,” he ordered finally. “Come back in five minutes.”
Before the time was up, they were clustered at the door. Dr. Strong
admitted them.
“Does the rehearsal begin now?” asked Bobs.
“It’s all over,” said the physician. “Look around you.”
“Ow-w-w!” wailed Bettina. “Look at Susan Nipper’s nose!”
That once inconspicuous feature had turned a vivid green.
“And the baseball is red,” cried Bobs.
“So’s my glove,” announced Julia.
Walking over to her, the Health Master caught her left hand and smeared
it with blue crayon. For good measure he put a dab on her chin.
“My story-book is all blue, too,” exclaimed the girl. “What’s it for?”
“Just by way of illustration,” explained the doctor. “The mouths of all
of us contain germs of one kind or another. So I’ve assumed that Bob’s
mouth has red, and Junkum’s blue, and Miss Twinkle’s green. Every chalk
mark shows where you’ve spread your germs.”
“Then the red on the ball is where I wet my fingers for that in-curve,”
said Bobs.
“And on my glove is where I caught it,” said Julia. “But what’s the
blue doing on my left hand?”
“I know,” announced Bobs triumphantly. “You got that slow drop on the
end of your finger and jammed your finger in your mouth.”
“It hurt,” defended Julia. “Look at the walls—and the Indian clubs—and
the chair.”
Crayon marks were everywhere.[2] In some places it was one color; in
others another; in many, a crazy pattern of red, blue, and green.
[2] For this ingenious example of the crayon marks I am indebted to
Dr. Charles V. Chapin, Health Officer of Providence, Rhode Island, and
a distinguished epidemiologist.
“And if I carried it out,” said the doctor, “your faces would all be as
bad.”
“I don’t care!” murmured Betty to Susan Nipper; “I _will_ kiss you even
if you do turn green.”
“But you mustn’t kiss Charley,” interposed Dr. Strong. “If you’ve had
enough rehearsal, we’ll go and make our call right after luncheon.”
Entering the sick-room, the three visitors stood a little abashed and
strange. Their hearty, rough-and-tumble brother looked strangely drawn
and brighteyed.
“Hello, kids!” said he, airily. “Make yourselves at home.”
Bettykin was the first to break the ice. “Did it hurt, Charley?” she
asked, remembering her own experience with adenoids.
“Nope,” said the convalescent. “Only thing that hurts is being kept in
bed when I want to be up and around. What’s new?”
Much was new, there in the room, and the children took it in,
wide-eyed. Although it was early May, the windows were screened. All
the hangings and curtains had been taken out of the room, which looked
bare and bright. On the door of the bathroom was a huge roller-towel of
soft, cloth-like paper, perforated in lengths so as to be easily
detachable, and below it a scrap-basket, with a sign: “Throw Paper
Towels in Here to be Burned after Using.” Between the two windows was a
larger sign:—
Keep your Fingers Away from Your Mouth and Nose.
Don’t Handle Utensils Lying About.
Don’t Open an Unscreened Window.
After Touching Anything which may have been Contaminated Wash Your
Hands at Once.
Use the Paper Towels; They’re the Only Safe Kind.
One Dollar Reward to Any One Discovering a Fly in the Room.
Wash Your Hands Immediately After Leaving the Room.
Keep Outside the Dead-line.