on the icy, springy brush they made difficult shooting and I killed two, missed five, and started back pleased to have found a covey close to the house and happy there were so many left to find on another day.
At the house they said the boy had refused to let any one come into the room.
“You can’t come in,” he said. “You mustn’t get what I have.”
I went up to him and found him in exactly the position I had left him, white-faced, but with the tops of his cheeks flushed by the fever, staring still, as he had stared, at the foot of the bed.
I took his temperature.
“What is it?”
“Something like a hundred,” I said. It was one hundred and two and four tenths.
“It was a hundred and two,” he said.
“Who said so?”
“The doctor.”
“Your temperature is all right,” I said. “It’s nothing to worry about.”
“I don’t worry,” he said, “but I can’t keep from thinking.”
“Don’t think,” I said. “Just take it easy.”
“I’m taking it easy,” he said and looked straight ahead. He was evidently holding tight onto himself about something.
“Take this with water.”
“Do you think it will do any good?”
“Of course it will.”
I sat down and opened the Pirate book and commenced to read, but I could see he was not following, so I stopped.
“About what time do you think I’m going to die?” he asked.
“What?”
“About how long will it be before I die?”
“You aren’t going to die. What’s the matter with you?”
“Oh, yes, I am. I heard him say a hundred and two.”
“People don’t die with a fever of one hundred and two. That’s a silly way to talk.”
