The stroke of the gods was curiously manifested. The next morning the disobedient seven ate their breakfasts in their several homes, in apparently normal health, unless a sudden frown or twist of lip or an outburst of bad temper might be said to constitute symptoms of disorder. One or two clung closely to the kitchen stove, though the day was even warmer than yesterday, and David Hartman visited surreptitiously the cupboard in which his mother kept the cough medicine with which he was occasionally dosed. With a wry face he took a long swallow from the bottle. Ollie Kuhns hung round his neck the little bag filled with asafœdita, which had been used in a similar manner for the baby's whooping-cough, and Jimmie Weygandt applied to himself the contents of a flask from the barn window, labeled "Dr. Whitcraft's Embrocation, Good for Man and Beast."
All left their homes and walked down the street with the stiff uprightness of carriage which had prevented their families from realizing how grievously they were afflicted. But one and all, they forgot their household chores. Billy Knerr's mother commanded him loudly to return and to fill the coal bucket, but Billy walked on as calmly as though he were deaf, and turned the corner into the alley with a thankful sigh.
There his erectness vanished. He stood and rubbed his knee with a mournful "By Hedes!" an exclamation of unknown origin and supposed profanity much affected by him and his friends, and henceforth walked with a limp. A little ahead was Ollie Kuhns, who, when shouted at, turned round bodily and stood waiting as stiff and straight as a wooden soldier. It was difficult to believe that this was the supple "Bosco, the Wild Man, Eats 'em Alive," who rattled his chains and raised his voice in terrifying howls in the schoolhouse cellar.
"Where have you got it?" demanded Billy.
"In my neck. I cannot move my head an inch."
"I have it in my knee. Indeed, I thought I would never get out of bed. My mom is hollering after me yet to fetch coal, but I could not fetch coal if they would chop off my head for it."
"Do you suppose any one else has it like this?"
Billy did not need to answer. The alley through which they walked led out to the pike, where moved before them a strange procession. The vanquished after a battle could have worn no more agonized aspect, could not have been much more strangely contorted.
"Both my arms are stiff," wailed Coonie Schnable. "It is one side as bad as the other."
"I can't bend over," announced the older Fackenthal, woefully. "I gave my little sister a penny to tie my shoes and not say anything."