“You wouldn’t think that having measles was so funny,” said Betty, when the trays had been carried out, “if you had had it the way I did.  It was in the middle of harvest, so nobody had time to take care of me.  Cousin Hetty had so much to do that she couldn’t come up-stairs many times a day to wait on me.  She’d just look in the door and ask if I wanted anything, and hurry away again.  My little room in the west gable was so hot.  The sun beat against it all afternoon, and the water in the pitcher wouldn’t stay cool.  Sometimes I’d cry till my throat ached, wishing that I had a mother to sit beside me, and put her cool hands against my face, and rub my back when it ached, and sing me to sleep.  And after I got better, and my appetite began to come back, I’d lie and watch the door for hours, it seemed to me, waiting for Cousin Hetty to come up with my meals.  I’d think of all sorts of dainty things that I had read about, until my mouth watered.  Then when she came, maybe there would be nothing but a cup of tea slopped all over the saucer, and a piece of burnt toast.  Or maybe it would be a bowl of soup half cold, or too salty.  Poor Cousin Hetty was so busy she couldn’t bother to fix things for me.  I couldn’t help crying when she’d gone down-stairs.  I’d be so disappointed.

“But the worst thing of all was what Davy did one day.  He wanted to be kind and nice, and do something for me, so he went off to the pond, and sat there on the hot sunny bank all morning, trying to catch me a fish.  To everybody’s surprise he did catch one about eleven o’clock,—­a slimy-looking little catfish,—­and came running straight up to my room with it in his dirty little hands.  He smelled so fishy I could scarcely stand it, for it was the day I felt the very worst.  But he didn’t know that.  He climbed up on the bed with it, and held it almost under my nose for me to see.  He was so happy that his dirty little face was all one big smile.  He kept saying, as he dangled it around, ’Ain’t he pretty, Betty?  I ketched him.  I ketched him for you, ‘cause you’re sick.’

“Ugh!  I can smell that fish yet!  I smelled it all afternoon, for he took it down-stairs to have it cleaned and cooked.  About one o’clock he came back up-stairs after I had had my lunch, and there he had it on a plate, fried up into a crisp.  I couldn’t have swallowed any of it, to save me, but I couldn’t disappoint the little fellow when he had tried so hard to please me, so I had to ask him to leave it, and told him maybe I would feel more like eating after I had slept awhile.  So he went out perfectly satisfied, and I lay there, growing sicker every minute from the smell of that fried fish.  At last I gathered up strength enough to throw it out of the window to the cat, but the plate still smelled of it, and nobody came in to take it away until after dark.

“Cousin Hetty was dreadfully worried when she found that Davy had been in my room, but he didn’t take the measles, and that was the only time I saw him while I was sick.  I was alone all the time.  You can’t imagine how doleful it was to stay in that hot dark room all day by myself.”