But as usual, our dear Tish rose to the emergency at once.
“Certainly she will have it,” she said. “You crack the ice, Will, and you might mix some salt with it while you’re at it. There’s no use doing it unless we do it right. A high fever is not to be fooled with.”
Well, I don’t know when I remember such a fuss as Emmie made over that cold pack. She was strong, too, and it was all we could do to put her between sheets wrung out of ice water and then pour the ice and salt over her. She howled and screamed, but Tish worked calmly.
“You’re killing me!” she would yell. “I’m dying!”
“You will die if you don’t keep quiet,” Tish would say.
“But I’ll take cold; I’ll take pneumonia.”
“Not with a temperature like that,” Tish would assure her, and pour on more ice and salt.
They did not stop until her temperature was down to ninety-five. She would not speak to any of us by that time, but when it was all over, Tish came over to the room Aggie and I occupied together and closed the door.
“I fancy,” she said grimly, “that it will be some time before she holds the thermometer against her hot-water bottle again.”