"Your wife?"
"Dead."
"Have you no one to help you?"
"All are dead."
Erastus fastened the spunge dipped in vinegar once more to his mouth, and entered the dwelling with his colleagues who took the like precautions. The windows were still fastened up, as there was nothing the patient hated so much as light. The commissioners hastily threw them open, so as to dispel by a draught of fresh air the horrible odors. The sunlight disclosed a neatly ordered clean room. The evening meal still stood on the table, a proof, of how quickly the horrible pestilence had seized the various members of the family at the same moment. A child's catechism and slate lay near the window ready for the morning school. A wild confusion was however disclosed in the adjoining rooms. The floors were strewn with rags, bandages, and straw, which proved how terrible the ravages of the plague had been. Two dead children lay in the same bed convulsively grasping each other. On another bed was seen the body of a woman, to which still clung a child, whose waxy little hand hung stiff outside the bed. Erastus himself set to work and with the aid of his assistants carried the bodies outside. The neighboring houses presented the same appearance. The more distant farmyards had all been plundered. The healthy occupants had taken to flight, the plague-stricken had gathered together in the villages, where the houses were nearer at hand, and where they might possibly render each other a little help. All round were heard sighs, shouts of delirium, and the death-rattle. Convalescents and those who were not so heavily afflicted by the infection moved about weakly and stupefied with fever rendering only the most necessary assistance. They brought the bread which had been deposited at a certain place outside the boundary line, into the village, milked the cows, kept up the fires, and buried the dead when capable of doing so.
"Where is the Mayor?" asked Erastus.
"Dead," answered a miserable looking knot of women, around whose necks hung some wretched infants.
"The clergyman?"
"His wife fell ill, he therefore hurried away with his family."
"The schoolmaster?"