l! Have you been near her? Put her out immediately! How on earth
did she get there?"

"You allus telled me to let everybody in," chattered Israel.

"Put her out! put her out!" cried Aunt Pen, half dancing with
impatience.

"We can't get her out. She's right acrost der door-step. We's feared ter
tech her."

But Aunt Pen's head was out of the window, and she was shouting:
"Police! fire! murder! thieves!" possibly in the order of importance of
the four calamities, but quite as if she had a plenty of breath left;
and, for a wonder, the police came to the rescue, and directly afterward
an ambulance took the poor victim of the frightful epidemic to the
hospital. I believe it turned out to be only measles after all, though.

"Run, Israel!" screamed Aunt Pen then; "run instantly and bring home a
couple of pounds of roll-brimstone, and tell the maids to riddle the
furnace fire and make it as bright and hot as possible, and to light
fires in the parlor grates, and in the old Latrobe, and in every room
in the house, without losing a minute. We'll make this house too warm
for it!"

And, to our amazement, as soon as Israel came darting back with the
impish material, Aunt Pen took a piece in each hand, directed us to do
the same, and wrapping the blue afghan round her shoulders, descended to
the lower rooms three steps at a time, sent for the doctor to come and
vaccinate us, and having set a chair precisely over the register where a
red-hot stream of air was pouring up, she placed herself upon it and
issued her orders.

Every window was closed, every grate from basement to attic had a fire
lighted in it, and little pans of brimstone were burning in every room
and hall in the house, while we, astonished, indignant, frightened, and
amused, sat enduring the torments of vapor and sulphur baths to the
point of suffocation.

"I can't bear this another moment," wheezed Mel.

"It's the only way," replied Aunt Pen, serenely, with a rivulet
trickling down her nose. "You kill the germs by heat, and since we can't
bake ourselves quite to death, we make sure of the work by the fumes."

And as she sat there, her face rubicund, her swan's-down straight,
drops on her cheeks, her chin, her forehead, and wherever drops could
cling, her eyes watering, her curls limp, and an atmosphere of
unbearable odor enveloping her in its cloud, the front door opened, and
a footstep rung on the tiles.

"Jess you keep out o' yer!" yelled Israel to the i