hree days, it is true, when ten words were more than
enough in which to be non-committal. And there was a day that came upon
the heels of these when the profits of the telegraph company must have
been unusual, for only two words came instead of ten--"Recovery
doubtful." This might as well have been left unsent, for I tore it up
and assured the waiting pair that no news was good news. They tried
eagerly to believe this aphorism, which has the authority of age, but
which I suspect was coined originally from despair.

The next day's bulletin read "Temperature still up, but making a strong
fight." Stupid it was, when these were but eight words, not to have
added two more, such as, "Very hopeful." I induced our telegraph
operator to rectify this oversight, and felt repaid for my trouble when
I showed the message. That last touch seemed to have been needed. Of
course Little Miss would make a strong fight. Miss Caroline and Clem
both knew that. But they had known other strong fights to be none the
less hopeless, and they were grateful for those last two words of
qualification.

There were four other days when the report seemed to need judicious
editing, and in this I did not prove remiss. As the telegraph company
remained indifferent, I could see that no harm was done. For at last
came a bulletin of seventeen words which left us assured that Little
Miss had conquered. Henceforth we could receive the things without that
stifling dread, that eager fearfulness of the eyes to read all the words
in one glance. Leisurely could we learn that Little Miss was getting
back her strength, and Miss Caroline and I could laugh at Clem's fear
that she also would find herself "pah'lyzed in th' frame."

After that Miss Caroline and I were free to consider another matter,
weighty enough with pneumonia out of the running. This was a matter of
ways and means--of sheer, downright money.

When Clem, in the first days of his sickness, had warned Miss Caroline
that she would not be let to waste "all that gold money," his lofty
reference, as a matter of cold figures, was to a sum less than nine
dollars. I forget the precise amount, but that is near enough--nine
dollars, in round numbers. And the winter had been an expensive one.

At the lowest time of doubt, when Miss Caroline had affairs of extreme
gravity to face, I had spoken to her incidentally of money that I owed
to Clem for services performed, and I had, in fact, paid several
instalments of