that individual who was knitting away cheerily in the corner.

"Well, if he keeps on as he's begun, I shouldn't know what to
think," replied Mrs. Beebe. "It beats all how quick he's picked up. I
never see anything like it, I'm sure!"

And as Mrs. Beebe was a great authority in sickness, the old, sunny
cheeriness began to creep into the brown house once more, and to
bubble over as of yore.

"Seems as if 'twas just good to live," said Mrs. Pepper, thankfully
once, when her thoughts were too much for her. "I don't believe I
shall ever care how poor we are," she continued, "as long as we're
together."

"And that's just what the Lord meant, maybe," replied good Mrs.
Beebe, who was preparing to go home.

Joel kept the house in a perfect uproar all through his getting well.
Mrs. Pepper observed one day, when he had been more turbulent
than usual, that she was "almost worn to a thread."

"Twasn't anything to take care of you, Joe," she added, "when you
were real sick, because then I knew where you were; but--well,
you won't ever have the measles again, I s'pose, and that's some
comfort!"

Little David, who had been nearly stunned by the sickness that had
laid aside his almost constant companion, could express his
satisfaction and joy in no other way than by running every third