He came into the room to shut the windows while we were still in bed and isaw he looked ill. he was shivering, his face was white, and he walkedslowly as though it ached to move.'what's the matter, chats? ''i've got a headache.''you better go back to bed.''no, i'm all right.''you go to bed. i'll see you when i'm dressed.'but when i came downstairs he was dressed, sitting by the fire, looking avery sick and miserable boy of nine years. when i put my hand on hisforehead i knew he had a fever.'you go up to bed,' i said, 'you're sick.''i'm all right,' he said.when the doctor came he took the boy's temperature.'what is it? ' i asked him.'one hundred and two.'downstairs, the doctor left three different medicines in different coloredcapsules with instructions for giving them. one was to bring down the fever,another a purgative, the third to overcome an acid condition. the germs ofinfluenza can only exist in an acid condition, he explained. he seemed toknow all about influenza and said there was nothing to worry about if thefever did not go above one hundred and four degrees. this was a lightepidemic of flu and there was no danger if you avoided pneumonia.back in the room i wrote the boy's temperature down and made a note ofthe time to give the various capsules.'do you want me to read to you? ''all right. if you want to,' said the boy. his face was very white and therewere dark areas under his eyes. he lay still in bed and seemed verydetached from what was going on.i read aloud from howard pyle's book of pirates; but i could see he was notfollowing what i was reading.'how do you feel, schatz? ' i asked him.'just the same, so far,' he said.i sat at the foot of the bed and read to myself while i waited for it to be timeto give another capsule. it would have been natural for him to go to sleep,but when i looked up he was looking at the foot of the bed, looking verystrangely.'why don't you try to go to sleep? i'll wake you up for the medicine.''i'd rather stay awake.'after a while he said to me, 'you don't have to stay here with me, papa, if itbothers you.''it doesn't bother me.''no, i mean you don't have to stay if it's going to bother you.'i thought perhaps he was a little light-headed and after giving him theprescribed capsule at eleven o'clock i went out for a while.it was a bright, cold day, the ground covered with a sleet that had frozen sothat it seemed as if all the bare trees, the bushes, the cut brush and all thegrass and the bare ground had been varnished with ice. i took the youngirish setter for a little walk up the road and along a frozen creek, but it wasdifficult to stand or walk on the glassy surface and the red dog slipped andslithered and fell twice, hard, once dropping my gun and having it slide overthe ice.we flushed a covey of quail under a high clay bank with overhanging brushand killed two as they went out of sight over the top of the bank. some ofthe covey 55 lit the trees, but most of them scattered into brush piles and it wasnecessary to jump on the ice-coated mounds of brush several times beforethey would flush. coming out while you were poised unsteadily on the icy,springy brush they made difficult shooting and killed two, missed five, andstarted back pleased to have found a covey close to the house and happythere were so many left to find on another day.at the house they said the boy had refused to let anyone come into theroom.'you can't come in,' he said. 'you mustn't get what i have.'i went up to him and found him in exactly the position i had left him, white65faced, but with the tops of his cheeks flushed by the fever, staring still, ashe had stared, at the foot of the bed.i took his temperature.'what is it? ''something like a hundred,' i said. it was one hundred and two and fourtenth.'it was a hundred and two,' he said.'who said so? ''the doctor.''your temperature isна голосовании
