The Committee on the Water Supply, and the Sub-Vigilance Committee stood, much depressed, before their superior officer. He, being a just man, flushed red with a noble rage.
“Where is he? Where is Zerviah Hope? The man should be sent for. He should receive the thanks of the committee. He should receive the acknowledgments of the city. And we’ve set on him like detectives! hunted him down! Zounds! The city is disgraced. Find him for me!”
“We have already done our best,” replied the sub-committee, sadly. “We have searched for the man. He cannot be found.”
“Where is the woman-doctor?” persisted the excited chief. “She recommended the fellow. She’d be apt to know. Can’t some of you find her?”
At this moment, young Dr. Frank looked haggardly into the Relief Office.
“I am taking her cases,” he said. “She is down with the fever.”
It was the morning after his last pay-day—Sunday morning, the first in October; a dry, deadly, glittering day. Zerviah had been to his attic to rest and bathe; he had been there some hours since sunrise, in the old place by the window, and watched the red sun kindle, and watched the dead-carts slink away into the color, and kneeled and prayed for frost. Now, being strengthened in mind and spirit, he was descending to his Sabbath’s work, when a message met him at the door. The messenger was a negro boy, who thrust a slip of paper into his hand, and, seeming to be seized with superstitious fright, ran rapidly up the street and disappeared.
The message was a triumphal result of the education of the freedmen’s evening school, and succinctly said:
“ive Gut IT. Nobuddy Wunt Nuss me. Norr no Docter nEther.