Part 45

“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.”