I
shall be well directly. Got a bit of a cold, I think."
"Slept in a field with the gate open like as not," Tom
laughed.
Arthur looked at him inquiringly.
"You'll feel better when you get your breakfast," Tom
went on. "I don't wonder you're sick--you haven't been
eatin' enough to keep a canary bird alive. Go on right
into the house now. I'll feed your team."
"It beats all what happens to our help," Mrs. Motherwell
complained to Pearl, as they washed the breakfast dishes.
"It looks very much as if Arthur is goin' to be laid up,
too, and the busy time just on us."
Pearl was troubled. Why should Arthur be sick? He had
plenty of fresh air; he tubbed himself regularly. He
never drank "alcoholic beverages that act directly on
the liver and stomach, drying up the blood, and rendering
every organ unfit for work." Pearl remembered the Band
of Hope manual. No, and it was not a cold. Colds do not
make people groan in the night--it was something else.
Pearl wished her friend, Dr. Clay, would come along. He
would soon spot the trouble.
After dinner, of which Arthur ate scarcely a mouthful,
as Pearl was cleaning the knives, Mrs. Motherwell came
into the kitchen with a hard look on her face. She had
just missed a two-dollar bill from her satchel.
"Pearl," she said in a strained voice, "did you see a
two-dollar bill any place?"
"Yes, ma'am," Pearl answered quickly, "Mrs Francis paid
ma with one once for the washing, but I don't know where
it might be now.
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