The west Tennessee star. (Bolivar, Tenn.) 1888-1888, 1888-10-26

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 we'll 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 the heavens,
driven on by some wind unfelt below.
When the moon shone it was with
half-vailed, uncertain light, and the
stars were dim.
There was always the red, ominous
glare of one or more prairie fires on the
sky, and sometimes one burned brightly
nearer by, sending up sharp. flashing
tongues of flame and cracking like a
bunch of fire-crackers, when it got
among a 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 quarantined. So he was given
a blanket and a basket of provisions,
and started off through the darkness
| for lonely little district schoOl-hOuse,
a 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 worked 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 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
daily became more 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.
Once more the safe and elegantly ap-
pointed train stopped, and while it
waited twenty minutes for possible
passenger the conductor came over to
town and played a game of billiards
with the principal of the school. The
! mellow Indian summer had worn into
crisp, bright November days with frost
on the dry grass blades of a morning
and clear blue sky, from which the
sun looked down with brilliancy I'M
dimmed by mist or haze And it
looked down on many a sOrrOwful
home, where q few weeks before a
family had worked happily together
building up a new home on the frontier,
but where now some were missing.
And it also saw more than one little
empty house; and one former inmate
was sleeping near by under a little
mound covered rudely with the gray
sods. But the bright November sun
was cheerful and inspired people to
work and help one another as much as
possible. And among the first who
came to town was the old man whose
girl had been sick, and every friend he
met he clasped his hand and said fer
vently: Thank God, she is all well
again. I knowed she couldn't die an
leave mer'-Fred Il. CGrraltb, In n Y.