GRACE'S malarial attack was soon repulsed, but the memory of that Sunday chill remained vivid. So Grace followed the Doctor's instructions as carefully as if she were an invalid on the brink of the grave, and she compelled Philip also to heed the counsel of precaution which Doctor Taggess had given to both. From that time forward she took personal sympathetic interest in all malarial victims of whom she heard, especially in those who purchased from the great stock of proprietary medicines in Somerton's store. Not infrequently a farmer or villager would be seized by a chill while talking or transacting business in the store, and Grace, despite her own experience in a warm room and under many woollen coverings, could scarcely help begging him to accept the loan of heavy shawls from the store's stock, and to sit undisturbed by the fire in the back room. When she planned a Sunday dinner, at which Doctor Taggess and his wife were to be guests, it was partly for the purpose of questioning the Doctor about the origin of malaria, and of its peculiarities, which seemed almost as numerous as cases; but Philip assured her that busy doctors, like other men of affairs, hated nothing so much as to "talk shop" out of business hours.

Fortunately she gradually became too busy to have time in which to become a monomaniac on malaria. The specimen organ arrived, and was placed in the church, to the great edification of the people. Grace was for a time the only performer, but to prepare relief for herself, improve the quality of the congregational singing, and not without an eye to business, she organized an evening music class, and quickly trained several young women to play some of the simpler hymn-tunes,—and also to purchase organs on the instalment plan.

From music lessons to dress-making is a far cry, but the fame of the purple and "Scare-Cow" dress had pervaded the county, and all the girls wanted dresses like it, which was somewhat embarrassing after the stock of the two calicoes had been exhausted. Then there arose a demand for something equally lovely, pretty, nice, sweet, or scrumptious, according to the vocabulary of the demander, and Eastern jobbers of calicoes and other prints and cheap dress-goods were one day astonished to receive from "Philip Somerton, late Jethro Somerton," a request for a full line of samples—the first request of the sort from that portion of the state. To be able to ask in a store, "How would you make this up?" and to get a satisfying answer, was a privilege which not even the most hopeful women of Claybanks had ever dared to expect, so the "truck trade" of the town and county—the business that came of women carrying eggs, butter, chickens, feathers, etc., to the stores to barter for goods—drifted almost entirely to Somerton's store, and caused John Henry Bustpodder, a matter-of-fact German merchant on the next block, to say publicly that if his wife should die he would shut up the store and leave it shut till he could get to New York and marry a shopgirl.

By midspring Grace had quite as few idle moments as her husband or Caleb; for between housekeeping, music-teaching, talking with commercial travellers, and selling goods, she seldom found time to enjoy the horse and buggy that Philip had bought for her, and she often told her husband, in mock complaint, that she worked longer hours than she had ever done in New York, and that she really must have an advance of pay if he did not wish her to transfer her abilities and customers to some rival establishment. Yet she enjoyed the work; she had a keen sense of humor, which sharpened the same sense in others, and when women were at the counter, she frequently found excuse to start a chorus of laughter. To her husband, a customer was merely a customer; to Grace he was frequently a character, and she had seen so few characters in the course of her New York experiences that she rejoiced in the change. She was sympathetic, too, so the younger women talked to her of much besides "truck" and goods. When one day a country matron rallied her on being without children, another matron exclaimed, "She's second mother to half the gals in the county"—a statement which Grace repeated to Philip in great glee, following it with a demure question as to the advisability of living up to her new dignity by taking to spectacles and sun-bonnets.

But in her sober moments, and sometimes in the hurry of business, a spectre of malaria would suddenly intrude upon her thoughts. Occasionally she saw cases of rheumatism, rickets, helpless limbs, twitching faces, and other ailments that caused her heart to ache, and prompted her to ask the cause. The answers were various: "malary"—"fever an' ager"—"malarier"—"chills"—"malaria," but the meanings were one. One day she burst in an instant from laughter into tears at seeing a babe, not a year old, shaking violently with a chill. Straightway Grace went to the minister—poor minister!—and demanded to know how the Lord could permit so dreadful an occurrence. One day, after engaging Doctor Taggess in general conversation, she abruptly said, despite Philip's reminder that physicians dislike "shop talk":—

"I wish you would tell me all about malaria; what it is, and where it comes from, and why we don't get rid of it."

"My dear woman," the Doctor replied, "ask me about electricity, of which no one knows much, and I can tell you something, but malaria is beyond my ken. I know it when I see it in human nature; that is, I treat almost all diseases as if they were malarial, and I seldom find myself mistaken, but, beyond that, malaria is beyond my comprehension."

"But, Doctor, it must be something, and come from somewhere."

"Oh, yes. 'Tis generally admitted that malaria is due to an invisible emanation from the soil, and is probably a product of vegetation in a certain stage of decay. It seems to be latent in soil that has not been exposed to the air for some time,—such as that thrown from cellars and wells in process of excavation,—and all swamps are believed to be malaria breeders; for when the swamp land of a section is drained, the malarial diseases of the vicinity disappear."

"Then why aren't all swamps drained?"

"Because the work would be too expensive, in the sections where the swamps are, I suppose. Look at this township, for example: while all the ground is open,—that is, not frozen,—the farmers and other people have all they can do at planting, cultivating, harvesting, etc. Swamp land makes the richest soil, after it has been drained, but who's going to drain his own swamp when he already has more good land than he can cultivate? Some of the farmers work at it, a little at a time, but it is slow work,—discouragingly slow,—besides being frightfully hard and disgustingly dirty."

"Then why doesn't the government do it?"

"I thought you'd come to that, for every woman's a socialist at heart until she learns better. Still, so is every man. Well, governments have no money of their own; all they have is taken from the people, in the form of taxes, and any increase of taxes, especially for jobs as large as swamp drainage in this state, would be too unpopular to be voted. Besides, while it would be of general benefit to the many, it would specially and greatly benefit the owners of the swamp land, which would start a frightful howl. Private enterprise may be depended upon to banish swamps and malaria; but first there must be enough population, and enough increase in the value of land, to justify it. I wish 'twould do so in this county and in my day. 'Twould lessen my income, but 'twould greatly increase my happiness, for doctors have hearts. By the way, have you yet heard from Caleb on malaria as a means of grace? There's a chance to learn something about malaria—to hear something about it, at least; for Caleb talks well on his pet subjects. Poor fellow, I wish I could cure his chronic malarial troubles. I've tried everything, and he does enjoy far better health than of old, but the cause of the trouble remains. That man came of tall, broad-shouldered stock on both sides—you wouldn't imagine it, would you, to look at him? He's always been industrious and intelligent; everybody likes him and respects him; but at times it's almost impossible to extract an idea or even a word from him—all on account of malaria. Again, he'll have the clearest, cleverest head in town. Seems strange, doesn't it?"

Grace improved an early opportunity to say to Caleb that perhaps she had done wrong in recovering so quickly from her attack of chills, for she had been told that he regarded malaria as a means of grace.

"Well, yes, I do—'bout the same way as some other things—air, an' light, an' food, an' money, for instance. Anythin' that helps folks to make the most of their opportunities can be a means of grace; when it isn't, the folks themselves are the trouble. Reckon nobody'll dispute that about good things. But when it comes to things that ain't popular,—like floods, an' light'nin'-strokes, an' malary,—well, folks don't seem to see it in the same light, and they suspect the malary most, 'cause it's far an' away the commonest. I've been laughed at so often for my notions on the subject that I've got hardened to it, an' don't mind standin' it again."

"Oh, Caleb! Please don't say that! You don't believe I would laugh at anything you're earnest about, do you?"

"Well, I don't really b'lieve you would, an' I'm much 'bliged to you for it. You see, my idee is this. You remember what's said, in one of the psalms, about they that go down to the sea in ships, and what happens to them when a big wind comes up—how they are at their wit's end, because they're in trouble too big for them to manage, so they have to call unto the Lord?—somethin' that sailors ain't b'lieved to be given to doin' over an' above much, judgin' by their general conversation as set down in books an' newspapers. Well, malary's like the wind, an' the spirit that's compared with it; you can't tell where it's comin' from, or when, or how long it's goin' to stay, or what it'll do before it goes. It puts a man face to face with his Maker, an' just when the man can't put on airs, no matter how hard he tries. I think anythin' that kicks a man into seein' his dependence on heaven is a means of grace, even if the man's too mean to take advantage of it. When a man's shakin' with a chill that's come at him on the sly, as a chill always does, an' finds all his grit an' all the doctor's medicine can't keep him from shakin'—snatches him clean away from his own grip, which is the awfullest feelin' a man can have—"

"You're entirely right about it, Caleb," said Grace, with a shudder.

"Thank you, but 'taint only the shake. It's not knowin' how the thing is goin' to come out, or how helpless it's goin' to make one, or in what way it's goin' to upset all his plans an' calculations—why, it teaches absolute dependence on a higher power, an' 'tisn't only folks that make most fuss 'bout it in church that feels it. After one gets that feelin', he's lots more of a man than he ever was before. I think malary has been the makin' of human nature out West here, an' in some parts of the East too. Why, do you know that almost every one of our greatest Presidents was born or brought up in malary-soaked country? Washington was, I know; for I had chills all over his part of Virginia, in war time, an' more'n a hundred thousand other men kept me comp'ny at it. Jackson, Lincoln, Grant, was some of the other Presidents that knowed malary better than they afterwards knowed their own Cabinets. As to smaller men, but mighty big, nevertheless—all the big cities of the land's full of 'em. Look up the record of a city's great business man, an' I'm told you'll find he never was born an' raised there, but in the back country somewhere, generally out West, an' nine times in ten can tell you more 'bout his ager spells than you care to hear. Still, such cases don't bear on the subject o' means o' grace, though they come from the same causes. Out in these parts malary does more'n ministers to fill the churches. So long as men feel first-rate, they let the church alone mighty hard, but just let 'em get into a hard tussle with malary an' they begin to come to meetin'. The worse it treats 'em, the more they come, which is just what they need. That's the way the church got me; though that ain't particularly to the p'int, for one swaller don't make a summer. But I've been watchin' the signs for twenty year, an' I'm not gettin' off guess-work when I say that malary's been one of the leadin' means o' grace in this great Western country, an' of pretty much ev'rythin' else that's worth havin'; the states that have most of it produce more good people to the thousan' than any other states, besides more great men, an' great ideas, an' first-class American grit. Now you can laugh if you feel the least bit like it."

"I don't, Caleb. But do answer me one question. If malaria has done so much good, and is doing it, do you think it ought to be preserved,—say as an American institution?"

"Well," said Caleb, "ev'rythin' an' ev'rybody, from Moses an' manna to Edison an' electricity, has had a mission, an' when the work was done, the mission took a rest an' gave somethin' else the right o' way. When malary's accomplished its mission, I, for one, would like to assist in layin' it away. I think I'm entitled to a share in the job, for malary an' me has been powerful close acquaintances for a mighty long time."