I always had a great horror of being sick--that is, a real, regular fit
of sickness, where you are perched up in bed, and have to do as other
people please, and have only just what covering they please--when you
are not suffered to put an arm out, or toss off a quilt that almost
smothers you, or drink a drop of cold water. Once in a while, I thought,
to be just sufficiently sick to sit in the easy chair and look over
mother's pretty things, or daub with her color-box, while people brought
me oranges and waited upon me, did very well. I was not a gentle, timid,
feminine sort of a child, as I have said before--one who would faint at
the prick of a pin, or weep showers of tears for a slight headache; I
was a complete little hoyden, full of life and spirits, to whom the idea
of being in bed in the day-time was extremely disagreeable--and when I
had been "awful," according to the nursery phraseology, the greatest
punishment that could be inflicted upon me was to send me thither to
enjoy the charms of solitude. I was a female edition of my brother
Fred; not quite so prone to tricks and mischief, perhaps--but almost as
wild and unmanageable.

Now and then Fred would come down in the morning pale, sick, and
subdued-looking; his head tightly bound with a handkerchief, and his
whole countenance expressive of suffering. A sick headache was the only
thing that could tame him; and a smile of ineffable relief sat on the
faces of the others as they glanced at his woe-begone visage. He was as
secure for that day as though chained hand and foot. My quiet hours were
when some fascinating book engrossed my whole attention; I drank in each
word, and could neither see nor hear anything around.

But here I was, really sick and quiet, ill in bed for a whole
month--day-time and all; and oh! the nauseous doses that somehow slipped
down my unwilling throat! Sometimes I would lie and watch the others