Grandma’s answer to Mr. Miller was a death-knell to Elitha’s hopes and plans in our behalf.  Her little daughter had been dead more than a year.  Sister Leanna had recently married and gone to a home of her own, and the previous week the place made vacant by the marriage had been given to Frances, with the ready approval of Hiram Miller and Mr. and Mrs. Reed.  She had now come to Sonoma hoping that if Mr. Miller should pay grandma for the care we had been to her, she would consent to give us up in order that we four sisters might be reunited in one home.  Elitha now foresaw that such a suggestion would not only result in failure, but arouse grandma’s antagonism, and cut off future communication between us.

CHAPTER XXIX

GREAT SMALLPOX EPIDEMIC—­ST. MARY’S HALL—­THANKSGIVING DAY IN CALIFORNIA—­ANOTHER BROTHER-IN-LAW.

“Mrs. Brunner has become too childish to have the responsibility of young girls,” had been frequently remarked before Elitha’s visit; and after her departure, the same friends expressed regret that she had not taken us away with her.

These whispered comments, which did not improve our situation, suddenly ceased, for the smallpox made its appearance in Sonoma, and helpers were needed to care for the afflicted.  Grandma had had the disease in infancy and could go among the patients without fear.  In fact, she had such confidence in her method of treating it, that she would not have Georgia and me vaccinated while the epidemic prevailed, insisting that if we should take the disease she could nurse us through it without disfigurement, and we would thenceforth be immune.  She did not expose us during what she termed the “catching-stage,” but after that had passed, she called us to share her work and become familiar with its details, and taught us how to brew the teas, make the ointments, and apply them.

I do not remember a death among her patients, and only two who were badly disfigured.  One was our pretty Miss Sallie Lewis, who had the dread disease in confluent form.  Grandma was called hurriedly in the night, because the afflicted girl, in delirium, had loosened the straps which held her upon her bed, and while her attendant was out of the room had rushed from the house into the rain, and was not found until after she had become thoroughly drenched.  Grandma had never before treated such serious conditions, yet strove heroically, and helped to restore Miss Sallie to health, but could not keep the cruel imprints from her face.

The other was our arch-enemy, Castle, who seemed so near death that one night as grandma was peering into the darkness for signal lights from the homes of the sick, she exclaimed impulsively, “Hark, children! there goes the Catholic bell.  Count its strokes.  Castle is a Catholic, and was very low when I saw him to-day.”  Together we slowly counted the knells until she stopped us, saying, “It’s for somebody else; Castle is not so old.”