Mae frowned. If nothing better turned up tomorrow she would take that dishwashing job.
Lucy finished supper of potato salad, cereal and milk. She swallowed twice. "My throat's scratchy."
Mae looked at her anxiously. "Open your mouth, dear."
Under the light she peered down an inflamed passage. Oh God, she thought wildly, what if she gets sick?
Before morning Lucy, burning with fever, had a racking deep dry cough. Mae was frantic. She saw the letters T.B. in a nightmare of panic. Oh God, and no money. The doctors will put her in an institution, say we are vagrants, and take her away from me.
As soon as a drugstore opened she bought with the last of their money some gargle and cough medicine. Then, instructing Lucy to keep warm and to use the gargle every hour, she went to the restaurant which had offered her a dollar and food to wash dishes. After a terrifying week the fever and cough were getting better but the janitor was scared. The party had been one thing but he did not want to get in wrong with the Bisons, so he stayed away until cleanup time for the monthly meeting, then told them firmly they must leave.
At last what Mae feared most was upon them. She would have to ask Mabel for help. At least Lucy would have a place to get better. She smoothed a sheet of Crofter Hotel paper and wrote her sister. A doctor said Denver altitude was too high and Lucy needed the climate in Congress, Nebraska.
Chapter 5
"A THING OF BEAUTY"
On Twelfth Street, in the moonless starlight, giant elms lining curbs reached arms across the road to form a long black tunnel of love. An outraged sparrow, awakened, cheeped accusingly, agitating the still, black leaves of its perch. Calls of "Run, my good sheep, run, run—" faded into the night as small boys, ready to trap Indians, were nagged to bed.
Good night, good night, neighbors called.
