"Dear me," said Mrs. Crane, "didn't we write that the boy was more than half drowned? I'm sure I said so."
"It was that Indian—that unspeakably filthy Indian," returned Aunty Jane. "He said the boy had a fever. I went to the jail—to the jail, Mrs. Crane—to talk to that—that beast."
"Who—Dave?"
"I suppose so. From what little I could understand, I gathered that that boy had some malignant illness—typhoid, diphtheria, scarlet fever, smallpox——"
"Mr. Black," interposed Doctor Bennett, "I did all I could to keep these women home, but they would come."
"I don't blame them," beamed Mr. Black, hospitably. "They wanted to see their girls. We're glad to see you all."
Aunty Jane, the neatest housekeeper in Lakeville, cast disapproving glances in every direction as Mr. Black led the way to the campground. Everybody else was busy exclaiming over Bettie.
"Are you sure you are Bettie?" demanded Mrs. Tucker, with delighted eyes. "Why, you're fat—Doctor Bennett, she hasn't been fat since she was three years old. And brown! And look at the red in her cheeks! And her lips!"
"I've certainly lost my patient," laughed Doctor Bennett. "But Mabel seems to be all here."