Macon beacon. [volume] (Macon, Miss.) 1859-1995, 1888-10-20

more medicines. She was very sick,
he said, much sicker than he had ex
pected she would be, but she was go
ing TO get well. He was nursing
her as she had nursed him.
She must get well-he knew she
would. The nights were still and
the sky was even more hazy than in
the daytime, and sometimes light
clouds hurried across tho heavens,
driven on by some wind unfelt below.
When the moon shone it was with a
half-vailed, uncertain light, and the
stars were dim.
There was always the red, ominous
glare of m or more prairie fires on the
sky, and sometimes one burned brightly
nearer by, sending up sharp, flashing
tongues OF fame and cracking like a
bunch of t~ire-crackers, when it got
among n little patch of blue joint
grass. BY day the places where the
fires had burned lay like great blotches
on the gray prairie.
Late one night, a young man who
lived in town, but had been in the
country since before the smallpox
outbreak, slipped past the guards and
returned home. The Board of Health
heard of it and promptly assembled
and summoned him into its presence.
He admitted having been exposed to
the disease, and it was decided that he
must be quarantincd. So he was given
a blanket and a basket of provisions,
and started off through the darkness
fort lonely little district school-house,
n mile from town, on the rivers bank.
There he stayed alone for two weeks.
but failed to develop any symptoms of
smallpox, greatly to the disgust of
Judge Perry, justice of the peace and
chairman of the Board of Health. He
claimed he half believed that the fell
low had deliberately "workedn the
town for free lodgings; and some said
that the Judge intended to make the
next person sent there give bonds to
come down with a virulent attack of
the smallpox inside of ten days.
But at last the disease began to near |
the end of its course. New cases
ceased and gradually most of those
who were i'll recovered. The people |
In town became more cheerful as it |
became o probable that they |
would escape it. How many in the
country fell victims to it could never
be found out exactly, but the number
was large in proportion to the popula-
ton. Atlast the quarantine was raised
and business again went on as usual. |
more the safe and elegantly APP
pointed train stopped, and while it
waited twenty minutes for q possible
passenger the conductor anne over to
and played q game of billiards
with the principal of the school. The
mellow Indian summer had worn into
crisp, bright November days with frost
the dry grass blades of a morning
md a clear blue sky, from which the
looked down with a brilliancv un-
iimmed by mist or haze. And it
.ooked down on many a sorrowful
lome, where a few weeks before a
had worked happily together
building up a new home on the frontier.
)ut where now some were missing.
And it also saw more than one little
Empty house; and one former inmate
vas sleeping near by under a little
mound covered rudely with the gray
'ods. But the bright November sun
vas cheerful and inspired people to
work and help n another as much as
possible. And among the first who
to town was the old man whose
yirl had been sick, and every friend he
net he clasped his hand and said fer
''Thank God, she is all well
gain. | knowed she couldn't die an
me!'-Fred H. Cayruth. IN n. Y,
IribUne. ,