Ajax said something in a low voice which Sissy and I could not hear.
Later I asked him what it was, because Pap had clicked his teeth.

"I told him," said my brother, "that he needn't think his call was
coming, because I was quite certain that they did not want him either
in Heaven--or in the other place."

"Oh," said I, "I thought that you were going to use a little tact with
Pap Spooner."

* * * * *

Next morning, early, we had a meeting in the store. A young doctor, a
capital fellow, had come out from San Lorenzo with the intention of
camping with us till the disease was wiped out; but he shook his head
very solemnly when someone suggested that the first case, carefully
isolated, might prove the last.

There were two fresh cases that night!

I shall not attempt to describe the horrors that filled the next three
weeks. But, not for the first time, I was struck by the heroism and
self-sacrifice of these rude foothill folk, whose great qualities
shine brightest in the dark hours of adversity. My brother and I had
passed through the big boom, when our part of California had become of
a sudden a Tom Tiddler's ground, where the youngest and simplest could
pick up gold and silver. We had seen our county drunk with prosperity
--drunk and disorderly. And we had seen also these same revellers
chastened by low prices, dry seasons, and commercial stagnation. But