The children used to play in mud puddles about the door. It was
the youngest of them that sickened with some kind of fever early
in the spring, before Jenkins began driving the cows out to pasture.
The child was very ill, and Mrs. Jenkins wanted to send for a
doctor, but her husband would not let her. They made a bed in the
kitchen, close to the stove, and Mrs. Jenkins nursed the child as
best she could. She did all her work near by, and I saw her several
times wiping the child's face with the cloth that she used for
washing her milk pans.

Nobody knew outside the family that the little girl was ill. Jenkins
had such a bad name, that none of the neighbors would visit them.
By-and-by the child got well, and a week or two later Jenkins came
home with quite a frightened face, and told his wife that the
husband of one of his customers was very ill with typhoid fever.

After a time the gentleman died, and the cook told Jenkins that the
doctor wondered how he could have taken the fever, for there was
not a case in town.

There was a widow left with three orphans, and they never knew
that they had to blame a dirty careless milkman for taking a kind
husband and father from them.

CHAPTER II THE CRUEL MILKMAN

I HAVE said that Jenkins spent most of his days in idleness. He
had to start out very early in the morning, in order to supply his
customers with milk for breakfast. Oh, how ugly he used to be,