"Is this the way you come straight home from school?"
He protested. There were some lessons to get from Miss Brown after, dismissal and that had delayed him. "And I've been here ever so long."
"Nonsense!" she ejaculated. "Just look at the state of your clothing. You've been playing football. Come into the house this instant!"
He obeyed meekly. The period of invalidism was over.
But to the harassed school doctor, it seemed on the following morning that John Fletcher's case was but the beginning of a long and startling outbreak of illness in the school.
Hardly had Miss Brown finished roll call before dark-haired Perry Alford, her brightest and most guileless scholar, waved his hand excitedly to attract attention. His eyes hurt terribly as teacher could see. Wouldn't it be well for him to go to the school physician? Miss Brown thought that it would.
Room Ten's door closed upon the prospective invalid. But a few moments passed before towheaded, lethargic Olaf Johnson voiced his complaint.
"Please, ma'm, my throat, it feels funny here." He placed a pudgy hand on each side of his jaw. "And this morning when I get up, my head feels hot."
He, too, was sent to see the school physician.
"Does your nose run?" asked the man of medicines when Perry finished the catalog of his ailments.