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A WELL-LAID PLAN
In the Civil War there were over two thousand battles and the details could not be reported in a lifetime. But their result can be stated in a phrase. The same brevity must apply to the campaigns, the stratagems, ballistics and tactics of Mrs. Budlong: numberless efforts at secession ended as a lost cause.
There was one more desperate struggle. While only a few days stood between her and her famous Christmas afternoons, she and her dour husband were having a bitter council of war. She had another attack of inspiration.
"I have it! the very thing! Why haven't we thought of it before?
Quarantine!"
"Quarantine?" echoed Mr. Budlong as if the word were gibberish.
"Yes. If we had something contagious in the house and a quarantine on, people couldn't come here with their odious gifts and they would be so afraid to get ours that they'd be much obliged to us for not sending them any."
For the first time in years Mr. Budlong paid Mrs. Budlong a sincere homage:
"You're a genius. It takes a woman to squirm out of a difficulty after all."
He was so excited he actually kissed her—and he hadn't finished his evening paper at that!
This overjoyed her so far that she fairly glowed.
"Oh, I'm so glad you approve, Ulie dear. And you'll help me, won't you?"
"You bet I will, ducky dove."
"That's glorious. Now which will you pretend to have, yellow fever or smallpox or—"
"Which will I pretend to have? Do you mean to say that you expect ME to go bed with a fatal disease?"
"It doesn't have to be fatal, my love. Just so long as it's contagious, you know."
"Well, of all th—what's to happen to my business?"
"Why, you can call it a vacation. And you can pretend to get well after Christmas; or you can have the doctor say it wasn't yellow fever after all."
"But I stay in bed for several days, eh?"
"Oh, you can move round all you want, just so 's't you don't go outdoors, and keep away from the windows."
Mr. Budlong's admiration was reverting to its normal state. He growled:
"You women would be an awful joke, if you were only a little funnier.
If you're so keen on this quarantine business you quarantine yourself.
You can have yellow fever, or scarlet, or green or any color you
like—robin's egg blue fever for all I care."
"But, my darling, I can't be having those things! You know I don't believe in them this year, since I became a—oh, it wouldn't do at all for Me. But You could have it because You believe in diseases."
"You bet I do, and I believe you've got softening of the brain." He paced the floor in an effort to keep up with his temper. Eventually he stopped short. He remembered that his son had failed to help the family out in its distress. He said:
"Let Ulie have something."