ten complicated things, they all naturally wanted work, and we had
cornered all the jobs.

So, after the fatigues of February, March, and April, and the heat of
June, Jan quite decided on that Uzhitze mud patch that a holiday would
do little harm to himself, and good to everybody else. Then, however,
came the problem of Jo. Jo is a socialistic sort of a person with
conservative instincts. She has the feminine ability to get her wheels
on a rail and run comfortably along till Jan appears like a big railway
accident and throws the scenery about; but once the resolution
accomplished she pursues the idea with a determination and ferocity
which leaves Jan far in the background.

Jo had her out-patient department. Every morning, wet or fine, crowds of
picturesque peasants would gather about the little side door of our
hospital, women in blazing coloured hand-woven skirts, like Joseph's
coat, children in unimaginable rags, but with the inevitable belt
tightly bound about their little stomachs, men covered with tuberculous
sores and so forth, on some days as many as a hundred. Jo, having
finished breakfast, had then to assume a commanding air, and to stamp
down the steps into the crowd, sort out the probable diphtheria
cases--this by long practice,--forbid anybody to approach them under
pain of instant disease, get the others into a vague theatre queue,
which they never kept, and then run back into the office to assist the
doctor and to translate. All this, repeated daily, was highly
interesting of course, and so when Jan suggested the tour she "didn't
want to do it."

But authority was on Jan's side. Jo had had a mild accident: a
diphtheria patient fled to avoid being doctored, they often did, and Jo