"But wait a moment.Please give the child some more of the medicine."Which I did.It was a medicine which made a child more or less lively;so my wife made use of its waking interval to strip it and grease it all over with the goose oil.I was soon asleep once more, but once more Ihad to get up.
"Mortimer, I feel a draft.I feel it distinctly.There is nothing so bad for this disease as a draft.Please move the crib in front of the fire."I did it; and collided with the rug again, which I threw in the fire.
Mrs.McWilliams sprang out of bed and rescued it and we had some words.
I had another trifling interval of sleep, and then got up, by request, and constructed a flax-seed poultice.This was placed upon the child's breast and left there to do its healing work.
A wood-fire is not a permanent thing.I got up every twenty minutes and renewed ours, and this gave Mrs.McWilliams the opportunity to shorten the times of giving the medicines by ten minutes, which was a great satisfaction to her.Now and then, between times, I reorganized the flax-seed poultices, and applied sinapisms and other sorts of blisters where unoccupied places could be found upon the child.Well, toward morning the wood gave out and my wife wanted me to go down cellar and get some more.I said:
"My dear, it is a laborious job, and the child must be nearly warm enough, with her extra clothing.Now mightn't we put on another layer of poultices and--"I did not finish, because I was interrupted.I lugged wood up from below for some little time, and then turned in and fell to snoring as only a man can whose strength is all gone and whose soul is worn out.Just at broad daylight I felt a grip on my shoulder that brought me to my senses suddenly.My wife was glaring down upon me and gasping.As soon as she could command her tongue she said:
"It is all over! All over! The child's perspiring! What shall we do?""Mercy, how you terrify me! I don't know what we ought to do.Maybe if we scraped her and put her in the draft again--""Oh, idiot! There is not a moment to lose! Go for the doctor.
Go yourself.Tell him he must come, dead or alive."I dragged that poor sick man from his bed and brought him.He looked at the child and said she was not dying.This was joy unspeakable to me, but it made my wife as mad as if he had offered her a personal affront.
Then he said the child's cough was only caused by some trifling irritation or other in the throat.At this I thought my wife had a mind to show him the door.Now the doctor said he would make the child cough harder and dislodge the trouble.So he gave her something that sent her into a spasm of coughing, and presently up came a little wood splinter or so.
"This child has no membranous croup," said he."She has been chewing a bit of pine shingle or something of the kind, and got some little slivers in her throat.They won't do her any hurt.""No," said I, "I can well believe that.Indeed, the turpentine that is in them is very good for certain sorts of diseases that are peculiar to children.My wife will tell you so."But she did not.She turned away in disdain and left the room; and since that time there is one episode in our life which we never refer to.
Hence the tide of our days flows by in deep and untroubled serenity.
[Very few married men have such an experience as McWilliams's, and so the author of this book thought that maybe the novelty of it would give it a passing interest to the reader.]
