“Well?” questioned Mrs. Clyde, facing the Health Master haggardly, as he entered the library.

“Oh, come!” he protested with his reassuring smile. “Don’t take it so tragically. You’ve got a pretty sick-looking boy there. But any thoroughgoing fever makes a boy of nine pretty sick.”

“What fever?” demanded the mother. “What is it?”

“Let’s start with what it isn’t—and thank Heaven. It isn’t typhoid. And it isn’t diphtheria.”

“Then it’s—it’s—;”

“It’s scarlet fever,” broke in her mother, Mrs. Sharpless, who had followed the doctor into the room. “That’s what it is.”

Mrs. Clyde shuddered at the name. “Has he got the rash?”

“No. But he will have to-morrow,” stated the old lady positively.

“Do you think so, too, Dr. Strong?” Mrs. Clyde appealed.

“I’ll accept Grandma Sharpless’s judgment,” answered the physician. “She has seen more scarlet fever in her time than I, or most physicians. And experience is the true teacher of diagnosis.”

“But you can’t be sure!” persisted Mrs. Clyde. “How can you tell without the rash?”

“Not in any way that I could put into words,” said her mother. “But there’s something in the look of the throat and something about the eyes and skin—Well, I can’t describe it, but I know it as I know my own name.”

“There speaks the born diagnostician,” observed the Health Master. “I’m afraid the verdict must stand.”

“Then—then,” faltered Mrs. Clyde, “we must act at once. I’ll call up my husband at the factory.”

“What for?” inquired Dr. Strong innocently. “Why, to let him know, of course.”

“Don’t. When I undertook to act as Chinese-plan physician to the Clyde household, I was not only to guard the family against illness as well as I could, but also to save them worry. This is Saturday. Mr. Clyde has had a hard, trying week in the factory. Why break up his day?”

Mrs. Clyde drew a long breath and her face lightened. “Then it isn’t a serious case?”

“Scarlet fever is always serious. Any disease which thoroughly poisons the system is. But there’s no immediate danger; and there shouldn’t be much danger at any time to a sturdy youngster like Charley, if he’s well looked after.”

“But the other children!” Mrs. Clyde turned to Mrs. Sharpless. “Where can we send them, mother?”

“Nowhere.” It was the doctor who answered.

“Surely we can’t keep them in the house!” cried Mrs. Clyde. “They would be certain to catch it from Charley.”

“By no means certain. Even if they did, that would not be the worst thing that could happen.”

“No? What would, then?” challenged Grandma Sharpless.

“That they should go out of this house, possibly carrying the poison with them into some other and defenseless community.” Dr. Strong spoke a little sternly.

Neither woman replied for a moment. When Mrs. Clyde spoke, it was with a changed voice. “Yes. You are right. I didn’t think. At least I thought only of my own children. It’s hard to learn to think like a mother of all children.”

“It’s as near to the divine as any human can come,” returned the Health Master gently. “However, I think I can promise you that, if the twins and Bettykin haven’t been touched with the poison already, they shan’t get it from Charley. We’ll organize a defense—provided only the enemy hasn’t established itself already. Now the question is, where did the poison come from? We’ll have Junkum in and see if she can help us find out.” Julia, the more efficient of the eleven-year-old twins, a shrewd and observing youngster, resembling, in many respects, her grandmother, came at the doctor’s summons and was told what had befallen Charley.

“Oh!” said Junkum. Then, “Can I nurse him?”

“I should think not!” burst out her mother and grandmother in a breath.

“Later on you can help,” said Dr. Strong. “In fact, I shall probably need your help. Now, Junkum, you remember I told you children a month ago that there was scarlet fever about and warned you to guard your mouths and noses with special care. Can you recall whether Charley has been careless?”

Miss Julia took the matter under consideration. “We’ve all been, I guess,” she said. “Clara Wingate gave a party last week and there was bobbing for apples, and everybody had their faces in the same tub of water.”

“Yes; and Irving Wingate has since come down with scarlet fever,” added Mrs. Clyde.

“Enough said!” asserted the Health Master. “I can’t think of any better way to disseminate germs than an apple-bobbing contest. It beats even kissing games. Well, the mischief is done.”

“Then they’ll all have it,” said Mrs. Clyde miserably.

“Oh, let’s hope not. Nothing is more mysterious than the way contagion hits one and misses others. I should say there was at least an even chance of the rest escaping. But we must regard them as suspects, and report the house for quarantine.”

“Ugh!” shuddered Mrs. Clyde. “I hate that word. And think of my husband coming home to find a flaming red placard on the house!”

“We’ll give him warning before he leaves the factory. And now for our campaign. Item 1: a trained nurse. Item 2: a gas-range.”

“The trained nurse, certainly,” agreed Mrs. Clyde. “But why the gas-range? Isn’t Charley’s room warm enough?”

“Quite. The stove isn’t for warmth; it’s for safety. I’m going to establish a line of fire beyond which no contagion can pass. We’ll put the stove in the hall, and keep on it a tin boiler full of water just at the simmering point. Everything which Charley has used or touched must go into that or other boiling water as soon as it leaves the room: the plates he eats from, the utensils he uses; his handkerchiefs, night-clothes, towels—everything.”

“That will be a hard regimen to keep up,” Mrs. Clyde objected.

“Martial law,” said the Health Master positively. “From the moment the red placard goes up, we’re in a state of siege, and I’m in command. The rules of the camp will be simple but strict. Whoever violates any of them will be liable to imprisonment in the strictest quarantine. We’ll have a household conference to-night and go over the whole matter. Now I’m going to telephone the Health Department and ask Dr. Merritt to come up and quarantine us officially.”

“But what of Charley?” exclaimed Mrs. Clyde. “You’re not going to keep me away from my boy?”

“Not when you put it in that way and use that tone,” smiled Dr. Strong. “I probably couldn’t if I tried. Under official quarantine rules you’ll have to give up going anywhere outside the house. Under our local martial law you’re not to touch Charley or anything that he handles, nor to kiss the other children. And you’re to wash your hands every time you come out of the sick-room, though it’s only to step beyond the door.”

“It is an order,” said the mother gravely. “Will he be very ill, do you think?”

“So far the cases have been mild. His is likely to be, too. But it’s the most difficult kind of case to handle.”

“I don’t see that at all,” said Mrs. Sharpless.

“You will, when he becomes convalescent. Then is when my troubles will begin. For the present the bulk of the work inside the sick-room will be upon the trained nurse and Mrs. Clyde. I’ll have my troubles outside, watching the rest of the family.”

Not since Dr. Strong came to the Clydes’ as guardian of their health had there been an emergency meeting called of the Household Protective Association, as the Health Master termed the organization which he had formed (mainly for educative purposes) within the family. That evening he addressed a full session, including the servants, holding up before them the red placard which the Health Department had sent, and informing them of the quarantine.

“No school?” inquired the practical-minded Bobs, “Hooray!”

“No school for you children, until further notice,” confirmed the physician.

“And no business for me, I suppose,” said Mr. Clyde, frowning.

“Oh, yes. You can come and go as you please, so long as you keep away from Charley’s room. Every one is barred from Charley’s room until further instructions, except Mrs. Clyde; and she is confined within military bounds, consisting of the house and yard. And now for the most important thing—Rosie and Katie,”—the cook and the maid—“pay particular heed to this—nothing of any kind which comes from the sick-room is to be touched until it is disinfected, except under my supervision. When I’m not in the house, the nurse’s authority will be absolute. Now for the clinic; we’ll look over the throats of the whole crowd.”

Throat inspection appeared to be the Health Master’s favorite pursuit for the next few days.

“I don’t dare open my mouth,” protested Bobs, “for fear he’ll peek into it and find a spot.”

“Dr. Strong spends a lot more time watching us than he does watching Charley,” remarked Junkum. “Who’s the sick one, anyway—us or him?” she concluded, her resentment getting the better of her grammar.

“Ho!” jeered Bobs, and intoned the ancient couplet, made and provided for the correction of such slips:—

“Her ain’t a-callin’ we,

Us don’t belong to she.”

“Anyhow, I ain’t sick,” asseverated Bettina; “but he shut me up in my room for a day jus’ because my swallow worked kinda hard.”

“If I’m going to have scarlet fever I want to have scarlet fever and get done with it!” declared.

Bobs. “I’m getting tired of staying out of school. Charley’s having all the fun there is out of this, getting read to all the time by that nurse and Mother.”

Meantime nothing of interest was happening in the sick-room. Interesting phases seldom appear in scarlet fever, which is well, since, when they do appear, the patient usually dies. Not at any time did Charley evince the slightest tendency to forsake a world which he had found, on the whole, to be a highly satisfactory place of residence. In fact, he was going comfortably along through a typically light onset of the disease; and was rather less ill than he would have been with a sound case of measles. Already the furrows in Mrs. Clyde’s forehead had smoothed out, and Grandma Sharpless had ceased waking, in the dead of night, with a catch at her heart and the totally unfounded fear that she had “heard something,” when one morning Charley awoke, scratched a tiny flake of skin off his nose, yawned, and emitted a hollow groan.

“What is it, Charley boy?” asked his mother.

“I’m tired of staying in bed,” announced the young man.

“How do you feel?”

The patient sat up, the better to consider the matter. “I feel,” he stated in positive accents, “like a bucket of oyster stew, a steak as big as my head, with onions all over it, a whole apple pie, a platter of ice-cream, and a game of baseball.”

Mrs. Clyde laughed happily. “I’ll tell the Health Master,” she said. She did, and Dr. Strong came up and looked the patient over carefully.

“You lie back there, young fellow,” he ordered, “and play sick, no matter how well you feel, until I tell you different.”

“How about that beefsteak and pie, Doctor?” inquired the boy wistfully.

“Mere prospects,” retorted the hard-hearted physician. “But you can have some ice-cream.” Conclave of the elders that evening to consider the situation was opened by Dr. Strong.

“We’ve now reached the critical point,” he began.

“Critical?” gasped Mrs. Clyde, whose nerves had been considerably stretched in the ten days of sick-room work. “Isn’t he getting well?”

“He’s getting well quite as quickly as I want him to. Perhaps a little more quickly. The fever is broken and he is beginning to peel.”

“Then what’s the difficulty?” inquired Mr. Clyde.

“Just this. Charley is a sturdy boy. The light attack he’s had hasn’t begun to exhaust his vitality. From now on, he is going to be a bundle of energy, without outlet.”

“From now on till when?” It was Grandma Sharpless who wanted to know.

“Two weeks anyway. Perhaps more.”

“Are you going to keep that poor child in bed for two weeks after he’s practically well?” said the mother.

“For three weeks if the whole family will help me. It’s not going to be easy.”

“Isn’t that a little extreme, Strong?” asked Mr. Clyde.

“Only the precaution of experience. The danger-point in scarlet fever isn’t the illness; it’s the convalescence. People think that when a child is cured of a disease, he is cured of the effects of the disease also. That mistake costs lives.”

“Because the poison is still in the system?”

“Rather, the effects of the poison. Though the patient may feel quite well, the whole machinery of the body is out of gear. What do you do when your machinery goes wrong, Clyde?”

“Stop it, of course.”

“Of course,” repeated the Health Master. “Obviously we can’t stop the machinery of life, but we can ease it down to its lowest possible strain, until it has had a chance to readjust itself. That is what I want to do in Charley’s case.”

“How does this poison affect the system?”

“If I could discover that, I’d be sure of a place in history. All we know is that no organ seems to be exempt from its sudden return attack long after the disease has passed. If we ever get any complete records, I venture to say that we’ll find more children dying in after years from the results of scarlet fever than die from the immediate disease itself, not to mention such after-effects as deafness and blindness.”

“I’ve noticed that,” said Grandma Sharpless, “when we lived in the country. And I remember a verse on the scarlet-fever page of an old almanac:—

If they run from nose or ear,

Watch your children for a year.

But I always set down those cases to catching cold.”

“Most people do. It isn’t that. It’s overstrain put on a poisoned system. And it’s true not of scarlet fever alone, but of measles, and diphtheria, and grippe; and, in a lesser degree, of whooping-cough and chicken pox.”

“You’ve seen such cases in your own practice?” asked Mr. Clyde, and regretted the question as soon as he had put it, for there passed over Dr. Strong’s face the quick spasm of pain which anything referring back to the hidden past before he had come to the Clyde house always brought.

“Yes,” he replied with an effort. “I have had such cases, and lost them. I might even say, killed them in my ignorance.”

“Oh, no, Dr. Strong!” said Mrs. Clyde in quick sympathy. “Don’t say that. Being mistaken isn’t killing.”

“It is, sometimes, for a doctor. I remember one little patient who had a very light case of scarlet fever. I let her get up as soon as the fever broke. Three months later she developed a dropsical tendency. And one day she fell dead across the doll she was playing with. The official cause of death said heart disease. But I knew what it was. The next case was not so wholly my fault. The boy was a spoiled child, who held his parents in enslavement. They hadn’t the strength of character to keep him under control. He insisted on riding his bicycle around the yard, three days after he was out of bed. Against his willfulness my protests were of no account. What I should have done is to have thrown up the case; but I was young and the people were my friends. Well; that boy made, apparently, a complete recovery. A few weeks later I was sent for again. There was some kidney trouble. I knew, before the analysis was made, what it would show: nephritis. The poison had struck to the kidneys like a dagger. The poor little chap dragged along for some months before he died; and his mother—God forgive me if I did wrong in telling her the truth, as I did for the protection of their other child—almost lost her reason.”

“And such cases are common?” asked Mr. Clyde.

“Common enough to be fairly typical. Afterward, I cited the two instances in a talk before our medical society. My frankness encouraged some of the other men to be frank; and the list of fatalities and permanent disabilities, following scarlet fever and measles, which was brought out at that meeting, nearly every case being one of rushing the convalescence—well, it reformed one phase of medical procedure in—in that city and county.”

“That settles it for Charley,” decided Mr. Clyde. “He stays in bed until you certify him cured, if I have to hire a vaudeville show to keep him amused.”

“My boy is not a spoiled child!” said Mrs. Clyde proudly. “I can handle him.”

“Maybe he wasn’t before,” remarked Grandma Sharpless dryly; “but I think you’ll have your hands full now.”

“Therefore,” said Dr. Strong, “I propose to enlist the services of the whole family, including the children.”

“What! Let the others go to see Charley when he’s peeling?” protested Mrs. Sharpless. “They’ll all catch it.”

“How?”

“Why, from the skin-flakes. That’s the way scarlet fever spreads.”

“Is it?” said the Health Master mildly. “Then perhaps you’ll explain to me why doctors aren’t the greatest danger that civilization suffers from.”

“I suppose they disinfect themselves,” said the old lady, in a rather unconvinced tone.

“Let’s see how much that would amount to. The fine flakes of skin are likely to be pretty well disseminated in a sick-room. According to the old theory, every one of them is a potential disease-bearer. Now, a doctor could hardly be in a sickroom without getting some of them on his clothes or in his hair, as well as on his hands, which, of course, he thoroughly washes on leaving the place. But that’s the extent of his disinfection. Why don’t the flakes he carries with him spread the fever among his other patients?”

“Don’t ask me!” said Clyde. “I’m not good at puzzles.”

“Many doctors still hold to the old theory. But I’ve never met one who could answer that argument. Some of the best hospitals in the world discharge patients without reference to the peeling of the skin, and without evil results.”

“How is scarlet fever caught, then?” asked Mrs. Clyde.

“From the discharge from the inflamed nose and throat, or from the ears if they are affected. Anything which comes in contact with this poisonous mucus is dangerous. Thus, of course, the skin-flakes from the lips or the hands which had been in contact with the mouth or nose might carry the contagion, just as a fork or a tooth-brush or a handkerchief might. Now, I’ll risk my status in this house on the safety of letting the other children visit Charley under certain restrictions.”

“That settles it for me,” said Mr. Clyde, whose faith in his friend, while not unquestioning, was fundamental; and the two women agreed, though not without misgivings. Thereupon Bobs, Julia, and Bettina were sent for, and the Health Master announced that Charley would hold a reception on the following afternoon. There were shouts of acclamation at the prospect.

“But first,” added Dr. Strong, “there will be a rehearsal in the playroom, to-morrow morning.”

“What do we need a rehearsal for to see Charley?” inquired Julia.

“To guard yourselves, Miss Junkum,” returned the doctor. “Possibly you don’t know everything about scarlet fever that you should know. Do you, Cherubic Miss Toots,” he added, turning upon Bettina, “know what a contagious disease is?”

“I know,” said the diminutive maiden gravely, “that if you leave Charley’s door open the jerrums will fly out and bite people.”

“Which fairly typifies the popular opinion concerning disease bacilli,” observed Dr. Strong.

“I saw a jerrum once,” continued the infant of the family. “It was under a stone in a creek. It had horns and a wiggly tail. Just like the Devil,” she added with an engaging smile.

“Betty’s been looking at the pictures in the comic supplements,” explained her elder sister.

“Popular education by the press!” commented Dr. Strong. “Well, I haven’t time for an exposition of the germ theory now. The point is this: Can you children stay an hour in Charley’s room without putting a lot of things in your mouths?”

“Why, I never put anything in my mouth. You taught us better than that,” said Julia reproachfully.

The doctor was little impressed by the reproach. “Humph!” he grunted. “Well, suppose you stop nibbling at your hair”—Julia’s braid flew back over her shoulder—“and consider that, when you put your fingers in your mouth, you may be putting in, also, a particle of everything that your fingers have touched. And in Charley’s room there might be jerrums, as Twinkles calls them, from his mouth which would be dangerous. Rehearsal at noon tomorrow.”

Expectant curiosity brought the children early to the playroom whither they found that the Health Master had preceded them.

“When’s it going to begin?” asked Bettina.

“Presently,” replied the master of ceremonies. “We’re going to pretend that this is Charley’s room. Just at present I’m busy with some work.” He shook a notebook at them. “Go ahead and amuse yourselves till I get through.”

Julia the observant noted three hues of crayon on the stand beside the doctor. “Are you going to make a sketch?” she inquired.

“Never you mind. You attend to your affairs and I’ll attend to mine.”

“Dr. Strong is a-goin’ to make a picture of a jerrum,” Bettina informed her favorite doll, Susan Nipper, imprinting a fervent kiss on the pet’s flattened face. “Come on an’ let’s read the paper.”

Dr. Strong made a note in his book, with a pencil.

“Want to play catch, Junkum?” suggested Bobs to his twin.

“All right,” said Julia, seizing upon a glove, while Bobs, in his rÔle of pitcher, professionally moistened the ball.

Dr. Strong made another note.

For half an hour they disported themselves in various ways while the Health Master, whose eyes were roving everywhere, made frequent entries in his book.

“All out now,” he ordered finally. “Come back in five minutes.”

Before the time was up, they were clustered at the door. Dr. Strong admitted them.

“Does the rehearsal begin now?” asked Bobs.

“It’s all over,” said the physician. “Look around you.”

“Ow-w-w!” wailed Bettina. “Look at Susan Nipper’s nose!”

That once inconspicuous feature had turned a vivid green.

“And the baseball is red,” cried Bobs.

“So’s my glove,” announced Julia.

Walking over to her, the Health Master caught her left hand and smeared it with blue crayon. For good measure he put a dab on her chin.

“My story-book is all blue, too,” exclaimed the girl. “What’s it for?”

“Just by way of illustration,” explained the doctor. “The mouths of all of us contain germs of one kind or another. So I’ve assumed that Bob’s mouth has red, and Junkum’s blue, and Miss Twinkle’s green. Every chalk mark shows where you’ve spread your germs.”

“Then the red on the ball is where I wet my fingers for that in-curve,” said Bobs.

“And on my glove is where I caught it,” said Julia. “But what’s the blue doing on my left hand?”

“I know,” announced Bobs triumphantly. “You got that slow drop on the end of your finger and jammed your finger in your mouth.”

“It hurt,” defended Julia. “Look at the walls—and the Indian clubs—and the chair.”

Crayon marks were everywhere. In some places it was one color; in others another; in many, a crazy pattern of red, blue, and green.

“And if I carried it out,” said the doctor, “your faces would all be as bad.”

“I don’t care!” murmured Betty to Susan Nipper; “I will kiss you even if you do turn green.”

“But you mustn’t kiss Charley,” interposed Dr. Strong. “If you’ve had enough rehearsal, we’ll go and make our call right after luncheon.”

Entering the sick-room, the three visitors stood a little abashed and strange. Their hearty, rough-and-tumble brother looked strangely drawn and brighteyed.

“Hello, kids!” said he, airily. “Make yourselves at home.”

Bettykin was the first to break the ice. “Did it hurt, Charley?” she asked, remembering her own experience with adenoids.

“Nope,” said the convalescent. “Only thing that hurts is being kept in bed when I want to be up and around. What’s new?”

Much was new, there in the room, and the children took it in, wide-eyed. Although it was early May, the windows were screened. All the hangings and curtains had been taken out of the room, which looked bare and bright. On the door of the bathroom was a huge roller-towel of soft, cloth-like paper, perforated in lengths so as to be easily detachable, and below it a scrap-basket, with a sign: “Throw Paper Towels in Here to be Burned after Using.” Between the two windows was a larger sign:—

Keep your Fingers Away from Your Mouth and Nose.

Don’t Handle Utensils Lying About.

Don’t Open an Unscreened Window.

After Touching Anything which may have been Contaminated Wash Your Hands at Once.

Use the Paper Towels; They’re the Only Safe Kind.

One Dollar Reward to Any One Discovering a Fly in the Room.

Wash Your Hands Immediately After Leaving the Room.

Keep Outside the Dead-line.

PENALTIES

For First Violation of Rules—Offender Reads to Patient One Hour. Second Violation—Banishment for Balance of Day.

“The dead-line is that thing, I suppose,” said Junkum, pointing to a tape stretched upon standards around the bed at a distance of a yard.

“Is it a game?” questioned the hopeful Bettina. “No, Bettykin. It’s a germ-cage. No germs can get out of that unless they’re carried out by somebody or something. And, in that case, they’re boiled to death on the gas-stove outside.”

At this moment Charley called for a drink of water. After he had emptied the glass, his mother took it out and dropped it into the disinfecting hot bath. Then she washed her hands, dried them on a strip of the paper towel and dropped that in the basket.

“I see,” said Julia, the observant. “Nothing gets any scarlet fever on it except what Charley touches. And everything he touches has to be washed as soon as it comes out of the dead-line.”

“Exactly. We’ll make a trained nurse of you, yet, Junkum,” approved the Health Master.

“Then,” said Julia slowly, “I think Bobs ought to wash his hands now. Mother opened the door after handling Charley’s glass, and when he went to watch her wash the glass, he put his hand on the knob.”

“One mark against Bobs,” announced the doctor. “The rigor of the game.”

A game it proved to be, with Charley for umpire, and a very keen umpire, as he was the beneficiary of the penalties. For some days Charley quite fattened on literature dispensed orally by the incautious. Presently, however, they became so wary that it was hard to catch them.

Then, indeed, was the doctor hard put to it to keep the invalid amused. The children invented games and charades for him. A special telephone wire was run to his room so that he might talk with his friends. Bobs won commendations by flying a kite one windy day and passing the twine up through Charley’s window, whereby the bedridden one spent a happy afternoon “feeling her pull.” And the next day Betty won the first and only dollar by discovering a small and early fly which, presumably, had crawled in by the hole bored for the kite twine. As to any encroachments upon the physical quiet of his patient or the protective guardianship surrounding him, the Health Master was adamant, until, on a day, after examining the prisoner’s throat and nose, and going over him, as Mr. Clyde put it, “like a man buying a horse that’s cheaper than he ought to be,” he sent for the Health Officer.

“It’s a clean throat,” said Dr. Merritt. “Never mind the desquamating skin. We’ll call it off.”

Whereupon Charley was raised from his bed, and having symbolically broken the tape-line about his bed, headed a solemn and slow procession of the entire family to the front porch where he formally took down the red placard and tore it in two. The halves still ornament the playroom, as a memento.

After this memorable ceremony, Mrs. Clyde retired to the library and, quite contrary to her usually self-restrained nature, dissolved into illogical tears, in which condition she was found by the rest.

“I—I—I don’t know what’s the matter,” she sobbed, in response to her husband’s inquiry. “It’s just because I hated the very thought of that abominable red sign so,—as if we were unclean—like lepers.”

“Well, we’re not lepers and if we can continue in that blessed state,” remarked Dr. Strong cheerfully, “we can escape most of the ills that flesh is heir to. After all, from a scientific point of view, contagion is merely the Latin synonym for a much shorter and uglier word.”

“Which is—” queried Mr. Clyde.

“Dirt,” said the Health Master.