"Perhaps I am very, very ill. How do I know? Fannie Townsend never was crazy in her life, nor Blanche Jones. And what made doctor papa look at my tongue this morning, unless he thought I was growing worse? He gave me powders, too, and told me to stay up-stairs and keep warm. Maybe I'm going to have a fever. I didn't eat anything for my breakfast but half a cracker, and my head aches so I don't want any dinner.—Julia," said she, interrupting herself in the midst of these gloomy musings, "do people ever die of chicken-pox?"
"No, indeed, not that I ever heard of. What put that into your head?"
"Now, Julia, you don't know the least thing about it! What do you know about fevers and medicines and things like that? Just because your papa is a doctor, that's no reason you should shake your head and think there's nothing the matter with me, when I'm feeling so bad!"
Julia would not, on any account, have laughed at her poor little sister; so she slipped quietly out of the room before Flaxie had time to continue this train of absurd and amusing remarks.
Finding herself alone, however, the reflections of the chicken-pox patient grew more and more sombre. What was the difference between this and small-pox? She had heard of a red flag which was hoisted when that good clergyman, Mr. Branch, lay ill in a house away from everybody, and at last died, almost alone. Probably Doctor Papa would never send a little girl like her—his own daughter, too—to a house with a red flag! Still she might die; and if she did, Julia would naturally be very sorry she had spoken so lightly—not to say disrespectfully—of a disease whose miseries she had never felt; that is, the chicken-pox.
An hour or two afterwards, Mrs. Prim called at Flaxie's room, and after feeling her pulse, and saying, "Oh, you are not very ill," she turned to Grandma Gray, who had come in, and began a conversation with her about Blanche Jones's father.
"Yes," said Mrs. Prim, "Mr. Jones is really aware at last that his disease is consumption. He knows he can never recover, and has made his will."
"Has he, indeed?" returned Grandma Gray. "I am truly glad to hear it."
"I tell my husband," went on Mrs. Prim, sitting very straight in her chair,—"I tell my husband I think it is every man's duty to make a will; yes, and every woman's duty, too. Mr. Prim agrees with me, and we each of us intend this very afternoon to have our wills drawn up and signed."
"A wise and proper thing, I am sure," remarked Grandma Gray.