"Yes," said Maudie, "last winter Hec and Duke had the independent fever, and they had to have jelly and beef-tea and things like that to make them strong again."
"Yes," said Magdalen, "that was why Lena—I forgot to tell you that that was the little girl's name—that was why they gave all those nice things to little Lena. But the worst of it was she didn't like them nearly as much as when she was well, and she often wished they would give her just common things, bread and butter and rice-pudding, you know, when she was ill, and keep all the very nice things for a treat when she was well and could enjoy them. She was getting well, of course; by the time it comes to thinking about what you have to eat, children generally are getting well; but she was rather slow about it, and even when she was up and about again as usual, she didn't feel or look a bit like usual. She was thin and white, and whatever she did tired her. Something queer seemed to have come over all her dolls and toys; they had all grown stupid in some tiresome way, and when she tried to sew, which she was generally rather clever at, all her fingers seemed to have turned into thumbs."
"How dedful," said Hoodie, stretching out her two chubby hands and gravely gazing at them. "All zumbs wouldn't look pretty at all. I hope mine won't never be like that if I get ill."
"My dear Hoodie," said Magdalen, as soon as she could speak for laughing. "I didn't mean it that way. Not really. I just meant that her fingers had got clumsy, you know, with her being weak and ill. It is just a way of speaking."
"Oh!" said Hoodie, rather mystified still, "I'm glad them wasn't zeally all zumbs."
"Only, Hoodie, I do wish"—began Maudie, but Magdalen went on before she had time to finish her sentence.
"And as the days went on and she didn't seem to be getting back to be like herself, her mother grew rather anxious about her.
"'We must do something about Lena,' she said to her father, 'she is not getting strong again. The doctor says she should have a change of air, but I don't see how to manage it. I cannot leave home while my mother is so ill,'—for Lena's grandmother lived with them and was rather an old and delicate lady—'and you, of course, cannot.'
"Lena's father was always very busy. It was seldom he could leave home, not very often, indeed, that he had time to see much of his little girl, even at home. But he was very fond of her, and anxious to do everything for her good. So he and her mother talked it well over together, and at last they thought of a good plan, and when it was all settled her mother told Lena about it.
"She called her to her one day when the little girl was sitting rather sadly trying to amuse herself with her dolls. But her head ached, and all her ideas seemed to have gone out of her mind. She could not think of any new plays for them, and she began to fancy their faces looked stupid.