I HAVE alluded to the intense blaze of the sun upon the day of our tryst with the newly-arrived travelers. Until then we had not suffered from heat in Switzerland. Our pension was a stone building, with spacious, high-ceiled rooms, in which the breeze from lake and icy mountains was ever astir, and we were rarely abroad excepting at morning and evening.
On our way home the next afternoon, after a delightful sail to Fluelen and back, and a visit to Altorf, we met Boy and nurse at the gate of the public park where he and I went daily for the “milk-cure.” Three or four cows and twice as many goats were driven into the enclosure at five o’clock and tethered at the door of a rustic pavilion. There they were milked, and invalids and children drank the liquid warm from great tumblers like beer-glasses. Goats’ milk had been prescribed for me, and I could endure the taste when it was fresh. When cold, the flavor was peculiar and unpleasant. Boy usually relished his deep draught of cows’ milk, but to-day he would not touch it. He had a grievance, too, that had tried temper and pride.
“Things bother me so, mamma! The people here are so foolish! A woman had some fruit to sell down there by the Schweizerhof and said a long nonsense to me. I said—‘Non capisco Tedeseo!’ and everybody laughed. It’s good Italian, and means—‘I don’t understand a word of your horrid old Dutch!’”
He began to sob. Papa picked him up and carried him to our carriage. When we were in our rooms, the Invaluable had her story to tell. Boy had taken a long walk with his sister in the forenoon and had come home complaining of headache and violent nausea. Seeming better toward evening, he had insisted upon going for his milk, and she had hoped the cooler air would refresh him.
“I want to go back where people have sense and can understand me!” moaned the little fellow. “I’m not a bit sick! I’m discouraged!”
The fever ran high all night. The following day we summoned Dr. Steiger, the best physician in Lucerne. There are few better anywhere. For the next fortnight—the saddest of our exile—his visits were the brightest gleams in the chamber shadowed by such wild fears as we hardly dared avow to one another. Cheerful, intelligent, kindly, the doctor would have been welcome had his treatment of our stricken child been less manifestly skillful.
“He is a sick boy. But you are brave?” looking around at us from his seat at the pillow of the delirious patient. “I will tell you the truth. He has had a coup de soleil. He is likely to have a long fever. It is not typhoid yet, but it may be, by and by. Strangers unused to the sun in Switzerland are often seriously affected by it. When he gets well, you will be careful of him for one, two, three years. Now—we will do our best for him. I have four boys of my own. And—”a quick glance at me—“I know what is the mother’s heart!”
I would not review, even in thought, the three weeks succeeding this decision, were it not that I cannot bring myself to withhold the tribute of grateful hearts—then so heavy! to the abundant goodness of the stranger-physician whose name we had never heard until our boy’s illness, and to the sympathy and active kindness that were our portion from every boarder in a house filled with English and Americans. Jellies, ices, fruit, flowers, toys, were handed in at Boy’s door, with tender inquiries, from hour to hour, as to his condition. Music-loving girls who had scarcely left the piano silent for fifteen minutes during the day and evening, now closed it lest the sufferer should be disturbed by the sound, his chamber being directly over the salon. Every foot trod softly upon the polished floor of the upper hall and the stairs, and offers of personal service were as earnest and frequent as if we had dwelt among our own people. I write it down with a swelling heart that presses the tears to my eyes. For Heaven knows how sore was our need of friendly offices and Good Samaritans at that juncture! The house was handsome, well-furnished and kept beautifully clean. Well people fared comfortably enough. But, for sickness we found, as we had everywhere else—notably at Cadenabbia—no provision whatever, and with regard to dietetic cookery, depths of ignorance that confounded us.
I could not for money—much less for love or pity’s sake—get a cup of gruel or beef-tea made in the kitchen. When Boy was convalescent and his life depended upon the judicious administration of nourishment, I tried to have some oatmeal porridge cooked, according to directions, below stairs, paying well for the privilege. There were two pounds of oatmeal in the package. I ordered half-a-cupful to be boiled a long time in a given quantity of water, stirred up often from the bottom and slightly salted. The cook—a professed cordon bleu—cooked it all at once and sent it up in a prodigious tureen,—a gallon of soft, grayish paste, seasoned with pepper, salt, lemon-peel and chopped garlic!