some of your own
medicine. This is Domestic Science as applied to the human organization.
Just imagine you are a missionary on one of the South Sea Islands, and
that you are going to be served up presently _a la_ Fiji. Shall I try to
fix you up something to eat?"

"Not yet. But I feel as if I could drink the brook dry."

"No cold water," he decided authoritatively. "The doctor forbids it. But
you may have another drink of hot boneset tea."

"Oh, please, not again!" she pleaded; and at that he made her a cup of
the other kind of tea, which she drank gratefully.

"Taste good?" he inquired.

"It tastes like the boneset--everything is going to taste like boneset
for the next six weeks."

"Don't I know?" he chuckled. "Hasn't it already spoiled my dinner for
me? I could taste it in everything." Then he told her about his
experiment in pan-bread, adding: "I have saved a piece of it so that if
you wish to commit suicide after you get well, the means will be at
hand."

"Do you think I am going to get well, Donald?"

"Sure you are! You'll have to do it in self-defense. Just think of the
oceans of bitterness you'll have to swallow if you don't. What is
puzzling me now is to know what I am going to feed you. Do you suppose
you could tell me how to make some pap or gruel, or something of that
sort?"

She smiled at this, as he hoped she would, and said there was no need of
crossing that bridge until they should come to it. Shortly after this
she fell asleep again, and by nightfall Prime was overjoyed to find that
her breathing was more natural, and that the fever was not rising. With
the coming of the darkness a fine breeze blew up from the river, and he
was overjoyed again when it proved strong enough to drive the tormenting
mosquitoes back into the forest.

That night he was able to make up some of the lost sleep of the two
preceding nights, and when daybreak came another burden was lifted.
Lucetta had slept all night, and she declared she was feeling much
better; that the fever seemed to be entirely gone. This brought the
question of nourishment to the fore again, and Prime attacked it
bravely, opening their last tin of peas and making a broth of the liquor
thickened with a little of the reground flour. Lucetta ate it to oblige
him, though it was as flat and tasteless as any unsalted mixture must
be.

"Are you always as good as this to every strange woman you meet, Cousin
Donald?" she said, meaning to make the quer