San Marcos free press. [volume] (San Marcos, Tex.) 1877-1892, 1878-10-05

days, when my stout, imperious, kind
hearted Irish nurse gave me, at excru.
ciatingly long intervals, o spoonful OF
ice water, and sometimes piece OF ice
the size of a hazel-nut, raved, and
cursed at my landlady. She was vile,
she was atrocious, she was infamous
The recollection that she had promised
me ice-water, and had heartlessly gone
back on her word, filed me with tenn
pestuous indignation. Oh! IT she had
given me that cooling drink would
have been well. would not have been
the fiery furnace that am. 1t would
have choked off the
DEMON OF THIRST
which is now consuming my vitals. Now
| can drink the whole water-supply OF
the city! What ecstasy to be one OF the
42.inch pipes of the Detroit water
works! 1 wish the Mississippi River to
flow down my throat! Oh! give me the
ocean itself, with my personal orltice
somewhere in the Arctic seas near the
frozen pole! =,
The long night slowly fits away, and
the blazing sun again scorches The
plague-stricken city. Mrs. Delaney, by
fortunate chance, has been secured.
Her last patient, Northern business
man, had died. Mrs. Delaney does not
pretend to be very sorry. She is 81
years of age, but more active than many
young lady of 20. She knows her bus
mess thoroughly, and has no vain senti-
mentalism in her composition. In the
intervals of my restless tumbling about
the bed commune with Mrs. Delaney.
Her first experience with yellow-fever
was many years ago-in the bad season
of 1837-when
HER FIRST HUSBAND
was victim to the plague, and she was
left alone with a baby to fight the battle
of life. She married again, she tells me,
and her second husband is not dead yet.
She remarks in a crisp voice that she
doesn't know where he is, and she
doesn't care. We change the subject.
3 find that I can not possibly die TO-
day. This is the second, and conse-
quently an even number of days.
IMAY DIE TOMORROW,
which is Wednesday, the third day; or
1 may become defupct on Friday, the
fifth day; or may shuttle off this fiery,
superheated coil on Sunday, the seventh
day; or may linger in agony till the
following Tuesday, the ninth day; but
can scorch, and burn, and gasp, and
yell on any of the intervening days with
out fear of death. l study this theory
over in wild, unconnected way, and
think it odd.
"The docthers say the croisis must
come on an odd day; and l have always
found it so myself" says Mrs. Delaney.
''Can ye spitp" The change of subject
is too abrupt, and stare at her vacantly.
"Spit in that. Humph! Is yer mouth
sorep 1t is. Well, that's good. Yell
lose power o. blood out of yer mouth"
Next day the doctor decides that am
afflicted with epistaxis n don't know
whether have spelled it right. 1t is
bleeding from the mouth, tongue, and
gums. My tongue is swollen, and there
are raw assures in it, and also in my
gums, and streams of blood issuing all
the time. After awhile my nose con-
tributes bloody stream, and family
ask Mrs. Delaney if l am going to bleed
to death.
"No; no danger of that. Bleedingis
a good sign," she says. swallow
lime-water and calcined magnesia,
which, am informed, prevents black
vomit. My eyes, which have been aching
terribly, now become tiercely intlamed,
and seem to be ready to start out of my
head. Toward evening l sign to my
nurse to hand me small mirror which
is hanging agaAS the wall. She re.
fuses. insist She persists. I be-
come exaspefated, and jump out of bed,
and, with q firm step, walk up to the
wall ascend the chair, and take it
down.
THE YELLOW FEVER FACE.
eyer so purity, ye must see yerself,"
says Mrs. Delaney, satirically.
I can but inadequately describe the
expression of my face. It was never a
good-looking countenance; nay, it was
always homely. The criticisms l have
heard on my physiognomy might be sum-
med up in the words ''stern" and
"sour." Still it would pass in a very,
very large crowd. But this-this is the
face of demon! My forehead is cor
rugated; my eyes are glazing and blood
shot; my swollen lips are bloody and
cracked; and my discolored teeth, set
fast, and expressing murder and de-
structiveness, are a combination and a
form, indeed, to give the world assur-
ance of tiend! l try to mitigate the
expression by an attempt to smile, and
produce-a hyena.
On the fourth day suffer indescriba-
BILE torture, and my mind is filled up
with frenzy and Mortified imaginings.
The central delusion is, that am con-
demned to whirl, in the same manner
as water-wheel, over a measureless
chasm, for just 1000, 900 years, Phan-
tasmauoria. in the form of endless pro-