Sitting in silence, they glanced from
one to the other now and again, smiled, nodded--and understood.
I was barred from the house for a month during the winter because little
Madeline had the scarlet fever, then epidemic, but it was reported a
light case and I contented myself with sending her toys and candy.
One day I dropped into Hopkins' office to make inquiry, when a clerk
told me Hopkins had not been to the office for several days. Mrs.
Hopkins was sick. I made another round trip and inquired again, and got
the same answer; then I went up to the house.
The officious quarantine guard was still walking up and down in front of
the Hopkins residence. To a single inquiry, this voluble functionary
volunteered the information that the baby was all right now, but the
lady herself was very sick with scarlet fever. Hopkins was most crazy,
no trained nurses could be had for love nor money, the doctor was coming
three times a day, and did I know that Mrs. Hopkins was some kind of a
foreign Dago, and the whole outfit "queer?"
Hopkins was in trouble; I pushed open the gate and started up the walk.
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