boy if anything
should happen to me; or what would happen to the boy alone if anything
should happen to the both of us. The case of Mrs. Bonnington hung over
me like a nightmare and the other possibility was even worse. Why,
when Cummings came down with pneumonia and it looked for a while as
though he might die, I guess I suffered, by applying his case to
mine, as much as ever he himself did on his sick bed. I used to
inquire for his temperature every night as though it were my own. So
did every man in the neighborhood.

Sickness was a wicked misfortune to that little crowd. When death did
pick one of us, the whole structure of that family came tumbling down
like a house of cards. If by the grace of God the man escaped, he was
left hopelessly in debt by doctor's bills if in the meanwhile he
hadn't lost his job. Sickness meant disaster, swift and terrible
whatever its outcome. We ourselves escaped it, to be sure, but I've
sweat blood over the mere thought of it.

Now if our thoughts ever took so grim a turn, we could speak quite
calmly about it. It was impossible for me ever to think of Ruth as
sick. My mind couldn't grasp that. But occasionally when I have come
home wet and Ruth has said something about my getting pneumonia if I
didn't look out, I've asked myself what this would mean. In the first
place I now could secure admission to the best hospitals in the
country free of cost. I had only to report my case to the city
physician and if I were sick enough to warrant it, he would notify
the hospital and they would send down an ambulance for me. I would be
carried to a clean bed in a clean room and would receive such medical
attention as before I could have had only as a millionaire. Physicians
of national reputation would attend me, medicines would be supplied
me, and I'd have a night and day nurse for whom outside I would have
had to pay some forty dollars a week. Not only this but if I recovered
I would be supplied the most nourishing foods in the market and after
that sent out of town to one of the quiet convalescent hospitals if my
condition warranted it. I don't suppose a thousand dollars would cover
what here would be given me for nothing. And I wouldn't either be
considered or treated like a charity patient. This was all my due as a
citizen--as a toiler. Of course this would be done also for Dick as
well as for Ruth.

I don't mean to say that such thoughts took up much of my time. I'm
not morbid and we never