“‘Just exactly nine days ago today,’ Mother fairly groaned.
“‘Aren’t you glad, Mother, that we surprised you with the measles?’ I asked, puzzled, for she didn’t seem a bit glad that we had them, though she had always talked as if she would be.
“At this Father and Belle and Aggie and even Mother laughed.
“‘If I don’t miss my guess,’ said Father, ‘you’ve surprised a good many other people with the measles, too, and I bet a lot of them won’t be very glad.’
“Of course a lot of folks did take the measles from Charlie and me, but the weather was warm and they all got along nicely, so there was no great harm done.
“Some of the folks wondered where in the world Charlie and I could have caught the measles. But old Mrs. Orbison, who came to see us right away, settled that by announcing, ‘I always say that things like that are in the air. No one knows where they get them or how.’”
SOMETHING TO BE THANKFUL FOR
It was the evening before Thanksgiving. Grandma had told Bobby and Alice and Pink about the first Thanksgiving, celebrated so long ago by the Pilgrims of Plymouth Colony to show their gratitude because their lives had been spared in spite of many hardships and because their crops had been plentiful enough to support them through the coming winter.