“Well, every country child knows that in every spring there is or should be a spring-keeper to keep the water clear. It is a kind of crawfish. It may be a superstition that he really does purify water. At any rate, it is a pleasing idea that he can. Whether he can or not, I know I can help a great deal by digging out of the springs the old dead roots and vegetable matter that decays there, so my self-appointed job is to keep the springs of Albemarle county in condition. I am sure I have saved many families from typhoid in the last years. That is something.
“I was born in the mountains, born in a cabin that stands just where the one I live in now stands, in fact the chimney is the same one that has always been there, but the house is new. When I was a mere lad, about twelve years old, there was a terrible epidemic of typhoid fever in the mountains. My whole family was wiped out by it, my father, mother and two sisters dying of it. I just did escape with my life and was nursed back to health by Tom Tit’s granny, as good a woman as ever lived. Afterwards, having no home ties, I drifted to the city where I was successful financially. We of the mountains had not known in the old days what caused typhoid, but afterwards, when I learned it was the water we drank, I determined to come back to my county whenever I could and make some endeavor to better the conditions. Would God that I might have been sooner! My poor boy had an attack of the dread disease just the year before I got my affairs in condition to leave New York, and that is what caused his brain trouble.”
Tom Tit was ahead of the party, gazing up into the air as his old friend spoke. He had a rapt expression on his face that made him for the moment look like Guido Reni’s Christ.
“Sometimes,” continued the old man, “in typhoid, the temperature is so high that certain brain tissue seems to be burned out. I am afraid that is what has happened to my boy.”
“All of us have been inoculated against typhoid,” said Lucy. “Dr. Wright insisted on it—every member of the family. Helen kicked like a steer but she had to do it, too.”
“Well named, well named, that young doctor! I try to get the friends in the mountains to submit to it, too, but it is a difficult matter. I keep the virus on hand all the time, a fresh supply. If I can’t persuade them to let me give them the treatment, I can at least keep their springs clean for them. Sometimes they even object to that,” he laughed, “but they can’t help it, as I do it without their leave. They say I take all the taste out of the water.”
Their way lay around the mountain instead of over it, the course they had taken the day before, and much to the amazement of the young people, they went to the left instead of to the right.
“But Greendale is that way!” declared Frank, pointing to the east.
“Greendale is really due north of us, but I thought you wanted to go by Jude Hanford’s cabin to do your errand. We could go either way to the camp from here, but if we go east, we will miss Jude.”