Nursing in a tent was a bad dream for patient and nurses. Grandma
kept boiling water to irrigate his ear and sterilize the
utensils, Rose-Ellen told stories, shouting so he could hear. At
night Daddy held him in strong, tired arms and sang funny songs
he had learned in his one year of college. Grandma tempted
Jimmie's appetite with eggs and sugar and vanilla beaten up with
Carrie's milk, and with little broiled hamburgers and fresh
vegetables--food such as the Beechams hadn't had for months.

The rest of them had no such food even now. Carrie was giving
less milk every day, so that there was hardly enough for Sally
and Jimmie. Grandma said she'd lost her appetite, staying in the
tent so close, and she was glad to reduce, anyway. Grandpa said
there was nothing like soup; so the kettle was kept boiling all
the time, with soupbones so bare they looked as if they'd been
polished, and onions and potatoes and beans. That soup didn't
make any of them fat.

But Jimmie grew better, and one shining morning Miss Pinkerton
stopped and said, "Jimmie's well enough to go with me on my daily
round. He needs a change."

After she had carted two or three loads of children to the
Center, she went to visit the sick ones in the camps for miles
around. First they went to another "jungle," one where trachoma
was bad. Here she left Jimmie in the car; but he could watch, for
the children came outdoors to have the blue-stone or argyrol in
their swollen red eyes. The treatment was painful, but without it
the small sufferers might become blind.