bad outbreak of smallpox — and took dinner in a boardinghouse where one of the maids was ill. Last night she developed unmistakable symptoms of smallpox. The Board of Health at once got after all the people who were in the house yesterday, so far as they could locate them, and put them under quarantine. I came down here this morning and explained the matter to Mr. Bennett. I brought Jeremiah Jeffries to guard the front of the house and Mr. Bennett gave me his word of honour that he would not let anyone in by the back way while I went to get another policeman and make all the necessary arrangements. I have brought Thomas Wright and have secured the services of another man to attend to Mr. Bennett’s barn work and bring provisions to the house. Jacob Green and Cleophas Lee will watch at night. I don’t think there is much danger of Mr. Bennett’s taking the smallpox, but until we are sure you must remain here, Peter.”
While listening to the doctor I had been thinking. It was the most distressing predicament I had ever got into in my life, but there was no sense in making it worse.
“Very well, doctor,” I said calmly. “Yes, I was vaccinated a month ago, when the news of the smallpox first came. When you go back through Avonlea kindly go to Sarah Pye and ask her to live in my house during my absence and look after things, especially the cats. Tell her to give them new milk twice a day and a square inch of butter apiece once a week. Get her to put my two dark print wrappers, some aprons, and some changes of underclothing in my third best valise and have it sent down to me. My pony is tied out there to the fence. Please take him home. That is all, I think.”
“No, it isn’t all,” said Alexander Abraham grumpily. “Send that cat home, too. I won’t have a cat around the place — I’d rather have smallpox.”
I looked Alexander Abraham over gradually, in a way I have, beginning at his feet and traveling up to his head. I took my time over it; and then I said, very quietly.
“You may have both. Anyway, you’ll have to have William Adolphus. He is under quarantine as well as you and I. Do you suppose I am going to have my cat ranging at large through Avonlea, scattering smallpox germs among innocent people? I’ll have to put up with that dog of yours. You will have to endure William Adolphus.”
Alexander Abraham groaned, but I could see that the way I had looked him over had chastened him considerably.
The doctor drove away, and I went into the house, not choosing to linger outside and be grinned at by Thomas Wright. I hung my coat up in the hall and laid my bonnet carefully on the sitting-room table, having first dusted a clean place for it with my handkerchief. I longed to fall upon that house at once and clean it up, but I had to wait until the doctor came back with my wrapper. I could not clean house in my new suit and a silk shirtwaist.
Alexander Abraham was sitting on a chair looking at me. Presently he said,
“I am NOT curious — but will you kindly tell me why the doctor called you Peter?”
“Because that is my name, I suppose,” I answered, shaking up a cushion for William Adolphus and thereby disturbing the dust of years.
Alexander Abraham coughed gently.
“Isn’t that — ahem! — rather a peculiar name for a woman?”
“It is,” I said, wondering how much soap, if any, there was in the house.
“I am NOT curious,” said Alexander Abraham, “but would you mind telling me how you came to be called Peter?”
“If I had been a boy my parents intended to call me Peter in honour of a rich uncle. When I — fortunately — turned out to be a girl my mother insisted that I should be called Angelina. They gave me both names and called me Angelina, but as soon as I grew old enough I decided to be called Peter. It was bad enough, but not so bad as Angelina.”
“I should say it was more appropriate,” said Alexander Abraham, intending, as I perceived, to be disagreeable.
“Precisely,” I agreed calmly. “My last name is MacPherson, and I live in Avonlea. As you are NOT curious, that will be all the information you will need about me.”
“Oh!” Alexander Abraham looked as if a light had broken in on him. “I’ve heard of you. You — ah — pretend to dislike men.”
Pretend! Goodness only knows what would have happened to Alexander Abraham just then if a diversion had not taken place. But the door opened and a dog came in — THE dog. I suppose he had got tired waiting under the cherry tree for William Adolphus and me to come down. He was even uglier indoors than out.
“Oh, Mr. Riley, Mr. Riley, see what you have let me in for,” said Alexander Abraham reproachfully.
But Mr. Riley — since that was the brute’s name — paid no attention to Alexander Abraham. He had caught sight of William Adolphus curled up on the cushion, and he started across the room to investigate him. William Adolphus sat up and began to take notice.
“Call off that dog,” I said warningly to Alexander Abraham.
“Call him off yourself,” he retorted. “Since you’ve brought that cat here you can protect him.”
“Oh, it wasn’t for William Adolphus’ sake I spoke,” I said pleasantly. “William Adolphus can protect himself.”
William Adolphus could and did. He humped his back, flattened his ears, swore once, and then made a flying leap for Mr. Riley. William Adolphus landed squarely on Mr. Riley’s brindled back and promptly took fast hold, spitting and clawing and caterwauling.
You never saw a more astonished dog than Mr. Riley. With a yell of terror he bolted out to the kitchen, out of the kitchen into the hall, through the hall into the room, and so into the kitchen and round again. With each circuit he went faster and faster, until he looked like a brindled streak with a dash of black and white on top. Such a racket and commotion I never heard, and I laughed until the tears came into my eyes. Mr. Riley flew around and around, and William Adolphus held on grimly and clawed. Alexander Abraham turned purple with rage.
“Woman, call off that infernal cat before he kills my dog,” he shouted above the din of yelps and yowls.
“Oh, he won’t kill him,” I said reassuringly, “and he’s going too fast to hear me if I did call him. If you can stop the dog, Mr. Bennett, I’ll guarantee to make William Adolphus listen to reason, but there’s no use trying to argue with a lightning flash.”
Alexander Abraham made a frantic lunge at the brindled streak as it whirled past him, with the result that he overbalanced himself and went sprawling on the floor with a crash. I ran to help him up, which only seemed to enrage him further.
“Woman,” he spluttered viciously, “I wish you and your fiend of a cat were in — in—”
“In Avonlea,” I finished quickly, to save Alexander Abraham from committing profanity. “So do I, Mr. Bennett, with all my heart. But since we are not, let us make the best of it like sensible people. And in future you will kindly remember that my name is Miss MacPherson, NOT Woman!”
With this the end came and I was thankful, for the noise those two animals made was so terrific that I expected the policeman would be rushing in, smallpox or no smallpox, to see if Alexander Abraham and I were trying to murder each other. Mr. Riley suddenly veered in his mad career and bolted into a dark corner between the stove and the woodbox, William Adolphus let go just in time.
