fluttery, was pouring coal into the kitchen stove. As the
doctor crossed the dining-room he paused and listened.
From one of the wing rooms, off to the left, he heard rapid,
distressed breathing. He went to the kitchen door.

"One of the children sick in there?" he asked, nodding
toward the partition.

Kronborg hung up the stove-lifter and dusted his fingers.
"It must be Thea. I meant to ask you to look at her. She
has a croupy cold. But in my excitement--Mrs. Kronborg
is doing finely, eh, doctor? Not many of your patients with
such a constitution, I expect."

"Oh, yes. She's a fine mother." The doctor took up the
lamp from the kitchen table and unceremoniously went
into the wing room. Two chubby little boys were asleep
in a double bed, with the coverlids over their noses and
their feet drawn up. In a single bed, next to theirs, lay a
little girl of eleven, wide awake, two yellow braids sticking
up on the pillow behind her. Her face was scarlet and her
eyes were blazing.

The doctor shut the door behind him. "Feel pretty sick,
Thea?" he asked as he took out his thermometer. "Why
didn't you call somebody?"