"What's the trouble?" asked Jean, when Bettie said that she didn't feel like going to the Public Library corner to view the Uncle Tom's Cabin parade. "A walk would do you good, and it's only four blocks."
"I'm tired," returned Bettie. "My head would like to go but my feet would rather not. And my hands don't want to do anything—or even my tongue. You can tell me about the parade—that'll be easier than looking at it."
Now, this was a new Bettie. The old one, while not exactly a noisy person, had been so active physically that the others had sometimes found it difficult to follow her dancing footsteps. She had ever been quick to wait on the other members of her large family; or to do errands, in the most obliging fashion, for any of her friends. This new Bettie eyed the Tucker cat sympathetically when it mewed for milk; but she relegated the task of feeding pussy to one of her much more unwilling small brothers.
"She needs a tonic," said Mrs. Tucker, giving Bettie dark-brown doses from a large bottle. "It's the spring, I guess."
Two days after the parade there was great excitement among Bettie's friends. She had not appeared at school. That in itself was not an unusual occurrence, for Bettie often stayed at home to help her overburdened mother through particularly trying days; but when Jean stopped in to consult her little friend about homemade valentines, Mrs. Tucker met her with the news that Bettie was sick in bed.
"Can't I see her?" asked Jean.
"I'm afraid not," replied Mrs. Tucker, who looked worried. "She's asleep just now and she has a temperature."
When Mabel heard this latter fact she at once consulted Dr. Bennett.
"Father," she queried, "do folks ever die of temperature?"