"Beef tea?" she echoed. "How long have these folks been ill?"
"Ever since they came ashore almost. They came straight up here, and began to be ill immediately. That was a few days ago; not a week."
"Beef tea!" said Miss Redwood again. "And just come to shore. How do they look? Did you see them?"
"Yes, I saw them," said Norton. "I went with Matilda when she took the beef tea to them. How did they look? I can't tell; they looked bad. The men were mahogany colour, and one of the women was out of her head, I think."
"And you two children going to see them!" exclaimed Miss Redwood, in a tone that savoured of strong disapprobation, not to say dismay.
"Because there was no one else," said Norton. "Mamma has gone to New York to get more people; for all ours went off when they knew of the sickness at the farmhouse."
"Why?" said Miss Redwood, sharply.
"I don't know. I suppose they were jealous of these strangers."
"H'm," said Miss Redwood, beginning now to take her bread out of the oven with a very hurried hand; "there's jealousy enough in the world, no doubt, and unreason enough; but it don't usually come like an epidemic neither. You go home, and tell Matilda I'm a comin' as fast as ever I kin get my chores done and my hood and shawl on. And you tell her—will she do what you tell her?"
"I don't know," said Norton. "What is it?"