Page 116 - Among the camps, or, Young people's stories of the war

Adams/ Every old woman in Middleburgh declared she
was worse than she had been in ten years, and old Mrs.

Hippm took to her crutch, which she had not used in twelve
months, and told Nancy Pansy’s sister she would die in a
week unless she could hear the old doctor’s buggy rattle
again. But when the fever broke out in the little low
houses down on the river, things began to look very seri­
ous. The surgeon from the camp went to see the patients,

but they idled, and more were taken ill When a number
of other cases occurred in the town itself, all of the most
malignant type, the surgeon admitted that it was a form
of fever with which he was not familiar* There had never

been such an epidemic in Middleburgh before; and Middle-
burgh said that it was all due to the old doctor's absence.
One day Nancy Pansy went to the camp, to ask about the
old doctor, and saw a man sitting astride of a fence rail which
was laid on two posts high up from the ground. He had a
stone tied to each foot, and he was groaning. She looked up

at him, and saw that it was the man who had broken her
doll. She was about to run away, but he groaned so she
thought he must be in great pain, and that always hurt her ;
so she went closer, and asked him what was the matter. She

did not understand just what he said, but it was something
about the weight on his feet ; so she first tried to untie
the strings which held the stones, and then, as there was a
barrel standing by, she pushed at it until she got it up close
under him, and told him to rest his feet on that, whilst she