"Maurice's sick," he shouted in the deaf woman's ear.
"Sick? Where's he sick?" Mrs. Keeler lifted the basket to the table and coming back to Maurice, put a berry-stained finger under his chin. "Stick out your tongue!" she commanded. "Billy, you fetch that lamp over here."
Maurice opened his mouth and protruded his stained and swollen tongue.
"Good gracious!" cried the mother, in alarm. "That good fer nuthin' boy has gone an' caught the foot an' mouth disease from Kearnie's sheep."
"It's jest a bad cold he's caught," Billy reassured her. "He's so hoarse he can't speak."
"Well, it might as well be one thing as another," frowned the woman. "That boy catches everythin' that comes along, anyway. I s'pose I'll have to quit my preservin' to mix him up a dose of allaways."
Maurice shivered and gazed imploringly at Billy.
"If you had somethin' sweet an' soothin' to give him," Billy suggested. "Pine syrup, er hoarhound, er somethin' like that, now—"
"Why, maybe you're right," agreed Mrs. Keeler, "an' I do declare! I've got some hoarhound right here in this basket. Ain't it lucky I sent fer it?"
The boys exchanged glances. The scheme was working! Mrs. Keeler went back to the basket on the table and started to remove the packages, one by one.