March he was out again; but he did not get _well_ or lose the persistent
little cough, which kept him thin and weak. Dr. Carr tried this remedy and
that, but nothing seemed to do much good; and Katy thought that her father
looked graver and more anxious every time that he tested Phil's
temperature or listened at his chest.

"It's not serious yet," he told her in private; "but I don't like the look
of things. The boy is just at a turning-point. Any little thing might set
him one way or the other. I wish I could send him away from this damp lake
climate."

But sending a half-sick boy away is not such an easy thing, nor was it
quite clear where he ought to go. So matters drifted along for another
month, and then Phil settled the question for himself by having a slight
hemorrhage. It was evident that something must be done, and speedily--but
what? Dr. Carr wrote to various medical acquaintances, and in reply
pamphlets and letters poured in, each designed to prove that the
particular part of the country to which the pamphlet or the letter
referred was the only one to which it was at all worth while to consign an
invalid with delicate lungs. One recommended Florida, another Georgia, a
third South Carolina; a fourth and fifth recommended cold instead of heat,
and an open air life with the mercury at zero. It was hard to decide what
was best.

"He ought not to go off alone either," said the puzzled father. "He is
neither old enough nor wise enough to manage by himself, but who to send
with him is the puzzle. It doubles the expense, too."

"Perhaps I--" began Katy, but her father cut her short with a gesture.