“What is the matter with Lois?” asked Miss Dorcas.

“Doctor says she’s threatened with the pneumony and she’s terrible bad off,” said Peggy.

As Miss Margery was not at home, Miss Dorcas herself went with Anne and Honey-Sweet to see the sick child.  They walked down the dingy street, took short cuts across vacant lots, passed through the ‘No Thoroughfare’ gate, and followed the straggling path that led to the little brown house.

Their knock at the door was followed by a scrambling and scampering within, and a hoarse wail from Lois.  Then a window was raised, a little face peeped out, and a relieved voice said:  “’Tain’t the doctor-man.  It’s Honey-Sweet’s girl and a lady.”

Peggy opened the door.  “Come right in,” she said.  Then she explained:  “We was tryin’ to get Lois back in bed.  The doctor says she must stay in bed and she hates it, so she will get up and have a pillow-pallet on the floor.”

There the child was lying, tossing restlessly about, while Mrs. Callahan’s machine rattled away as usual.

Lois gave a cry of delight when Anne came in with Honey-Sweet.  “Pretty sweet Honey!” she exclaimed.  “Le’ me kiss her one time.”

“You wait,” said Mrs. Callahan.  “That dolly ain’t coming nigh you till you take your dost of medicine.  Then I’ll ask the lady to let her lay on the pillow.”

Lois looked inquiringly at Anne.

“Take your medicine like a good girl,” said Honey-Sweet’s little mother, “and I’ll let you hold my baby doll in your own hands.”

Lois opened her mouth to receive the bitter draught and then stretched out her arms for Honey-Sweet.  She touched shoes and dress and hair with light, admiring fingers.

“Pretty sweet Honey,” she murmured.

Mrs. Callahan breathed a sigh of relief.  “That’s the first dost of medicine we’ve got her to take to-day,” she said.  “We’ve all been tryin’ to worrit it down her.  We’ve give her everything in the house she fancied.  Pa he paid her a bottle of beer to take a spoonful last night.  Bless you, no’m”—­even in her distress she laughed at Miss Dorcas’s shocked look—­“she didn’t drink a drop of it.  She likes to see it sizzle, and she had him pull off the cap and let it foam and drizzle on the floor.”

“I would whip her,” said Miss Dorcas, drawing her mouth down at the corners.

“No’m, you wouldn’t,” said Mrs. Callahan, “not if you was her mother and she sick.  But it do worrit me awful.  These two days I been pourin’ out a spoonful of her medicine every two hours—­time she ought to take it—­and a-throwin’ it away.  It’s a dreadful waste.  But I got to do something to make the doctor think she’s took it.  It makes him so mad when she don’t.”

Miss Dorcas exclaimed in dismay.  “Aren’t you afraid the child will die if she doesn’t take the medicine?”

“Yessum, I am.  But what can I do?” said Mrs. Callahan.  “I try to get her to take it every time she ought to have a dost.  And what’s the use of worritin’ the doctor if she won’t?  It makes him so mad.”