"Why, Fred, where are you?" he exclaimed.
"Here," responded a voice from the other side of the room. "I haven't been asleep for ever so long, and my face felt so funny and hot I got up to put some cold water on it. I don't know what's the matter, but it feels so queer."
Rob raised his head from the pillow, and eyed his friend curiously for a moment.
"Queer!" he said then, "I should think it might! You just ought to see yourself, Fred Allen. It's all red and speckled—I'll tell you, you must have hit some poison yesterday morning when we were out in the woods."
"I wonder if that is it," said Fred rather disconsolately. "My head aches enough to have it almost anything. How long does it last, Bob?"
"Oh, two or three weeks," answered Rob encouragingly. "I've been poisoned lots of times, and it's horrid. Pretty soon you'll begin to itch, and then you mustn't scratch it, or it will be worse. Want me to call cousin Bess?"
"Not now," said Fred, as he struck the repeater that his father had bought for him soon after his return from Boston. "Only five o'clock, three hours to breakfast time. It would be too bad to disturb her."
Rob subsided into drowsiness for a few moments, but his conscience would not let him sleep, when he knew Fred was so uncomfortable.
"I'll tell you, Fred," he said suddenly, "they told me once, just as I was getting over it, that plantain leaves are good for poison. You just keep quiet, and I'll go look for some."
And he sprang out of bed and hastily pulled on his clothes, without stopping for shoes and stockings. Out he ran, barefooted, over the dewy lawn, looking here and there for the coveted plant. But it was not in vain that Jack Rogers had a fine gardener for his summer home, and to the water's edge the smooth, even turf was broken by no weed. At last, out by the back door, Rob discovered two of the green leaves, and, seizing them in triumph, he tiptoed up the stairs, past Bessie's door, to his own room.