“It’s just because you have sewed so much that your eyes are bad.” Mrs. Pepper couldn’t repress the sigh.
“Mamsie, now don’t you feel badly,” Polly brought her head up suddenly. “Oh, I wish I could see your face—don’t you, Mamsie?” She clutched her mother tightly, and the tears began to come again.
“Polly,” said Mrs. Pepper, “now you and I have both got to be brave. It’s not time for crying, and you must just be mother’s girl, and lie down and keep warm under the clothes. That’s the very best way to help me.”
“I’ll try,” said Polly, as Mrs. Pepper tucked her in under the old comforter.
But although old Mrs. Beebe was kind as could be, and Grandma Bascom hobbled over every now and then, and Parson Henderson and his wife helped in every imaginable way, a black cloud settled over the little brown house. And one day Badgertown heard the news: “Joel Pepper is took sick with th’ measles, and he’s awful bad.”
“I don’t believe it,” said Mr. Atkins, turning off with the jug he was filling from the big barrel of molasses for a customer, “that boy can’t be sick.”
“Well, he is,” declared the customer. “Look out! th’ ’lasses is all a-runnin’ over th’ floor!”
“Thunderation!” The storekeeper jumped back and picked his foot out of the sticky mess, while he thrust the jug under the bunghole. “Hold your tongue, Timothy Bliss! Joel Pepper was in here yist’day—no, that was David bringin’ back th’ coats Mis Pepper had sewed—’twas day before yist’day Joe came runnin’ in, smart as a cricket. He warn’t goin’ to have no squeezles, he said, No, Sir!” Mr. Atkins turned off the spigot sharply, and set the jug on the counter with a thud.
“He’s got ’em now at any rate,” said Mr. Bliss solemnly. “An’ Mis Beebe says they wouldn’t wonder ef he was goin’ to die.”
“Die!” roared the storekeeper. “Ain’t you ’shamed, Timothy Bliss, to stand there sayin’ sech stuff! Joel Pepper can’t die.” Yet Mr. Atkins gripped the counter with both hands, while everything in his store seemed to spin around.