Chapter XXIV
Enter Jonas
“PROSPECT POINT, “August 20th.
“Dear Anne—spelled—with—an—E,” wrote Phil, “I must prop my eyelids
open long enough to write you. I’ve neglected you shamefully this summer,
honey, but all my other correspondents have been neglected, too. I have a huge
pile of letters to answer, so I must gird up the loins of my mind and hoe in.
Excuse my mixed metaphors. I’m fearfully sleepy. Last night Cousin Emily and
I were calling at a neighbor’s. There were several other callers there, and as soon
as those unfortunate creatures left, our hostess and her three daughters picked
them all to pieces. I knew they would begin on Cousin Emily and me as soon as
the door shut behind us. When we came home Mrs. Lilly informed us that the
aforesaid neighbor’s hired boy was supposed to be down with scarlet fever. You
can always trust Mrs. Lilly to tell you cheerful things like that. I have a horror of
scarlet fever. I couldn’t sleep when I went to bed for thinking of it. I tossed and
tumbled about, dreaming fearful dreams when I did snooze for a minute; and at
three I wakened up with a high fever, a sore throat, and a raging headache. I
knew I had scarlet fever; I got up in a panic and hunted up Cousin Emily’s
‘doctor book’ to read up the symptoms. Anne, I had them all. So I went back to
bed, and knowing the worst, slept like a top the rest of the night. Though why a
top should sleep sounder than anything else I never could understand. But this
morning I was quite well, so it couldn’t have been the fever. I suppose if I did
catch it last night it couldn’t have developed so soon. I can remember that in
daytime, but at three o’clock at night I never can be logical.
“I suppose you wonder what I’m doing at Prospect Point. Well, I always like
to spend a month of summer at the shore, and father insists that I come to his
second-cousin Emily’s ‘select boardinghouse’ at Prospect Point. So a fortnight
ago I came as usual. And as usual old ‘Uncle Mark Miller’ brought me from the
station with his ancient buggy and what he calls his ‘generous purpose’ horse.
He is a nice old man and gave me a handful of pink peppermints. Peppermints
always seem to me such a religious sort of candy—I suppose because when I
was a little girl Grandmother Gordon always gave them to me in church. Once I