“The strange white solitude of peace That settles over all.”
 I
F it was anybody else but Miss Billy," sighed Mrs. Canary.
 
Mrs. Hennesy pulled her shawl down over her swollen eyes, and made no reply.
 
"I've just been in there, an' her fever's higher. She just raved an' tossed all night," went on Mrs. Canary.
 
"I was on me way there, now," said Mrs. Hennesy,—"but I guess I'll not go in, afther hearing how she is. Folks around a sick house is only a clutter."
 
"I know it,—but I can't hardly keep away. Seems as if I must do something fer that poor lamb, after all the times she's helped me, takin' care of the childurn an' all. She's just worked-318- herself to death tryin' to keep Cherry Street clean, an' all this summer, that's what she has,—an' no pertic'lar thanks fer it, neither."
 
"I guess it's not all work that's done it," said Mrs. Hennesy significantly. "It's that ould ciss-pool between us and the Lee's that's been p'isoning her. The wondher is we're not all dead. And afther all the times we've spoke about it to old man Schultzsky, too. Well, I hope he'll mate his reward in the nixt wurld, if he don't in this."
 
"Do you know, they say he feels awful bad about it. Just walks 'round like a hen on a hot griddle. Don't ask fer no news of her, but just can't settle down easy anywhere. I should think he would be prosterated with grief! An' he wouldn't be the only one! Everybody on the street feels the same way. Her sickness has just cast a shadder over everything. I never seen the beat of it."
 
Mrs. Hennesy's broad Irish face grew almost beautiful in its tenderness. "I feel like she was wan av me own," she said softly. "No-319- wan, not even the dear child herself, knows what she has done for us! John Thomas hasn't spoke a word about the house for a wake. Miss Billy has done wondhers for that bye. If you could see him workin' over his lessons, an' tidyin' up the yard, an' trainin' up the few bits of vines he's planted! An' Mary Jane, she didn't like her at first, but sure her heart is broke now. As for Mr. Hennesy and mesilf,—well, there's no way to tell how we feel about it."
 
"I guess we're all mournin' together," said Mrs. Canary. "Mr. Canary wouldn't tech fish fer dinner,—Holly Belle is all stuffed up with tears, an' Friddie hangs round their door till I just expect Mis' Lee'll throw water on him to git red of him. The children are all a-prayin' for her ev'ry night, an' if God kin resest their innercent pleadin' it's more'n I could do."
 
"It's Cherry Street that's nadin' her more than Hivin does," said Mrs. Hennesy.
 
"I guess it does!" exclaimed Mrs. Canary fervently. "We can't do without her. The-320- children just fairly adore her image, the big boys and girls all love her, and the fathers and mothers need her the most of all. If she'd never done a thing fer us but to show that pretty smile of hers, an' let us see her eyes shine, an' hear her sweet voice, we'd miss her enough: but rememberin' all she has done——" Words failed the good woman, and her sentence ended abruptly.
 
"I suppose there's not a thing a person could do to help," said Mrs. Hennesy.
 
"Not a thing. The house is full of flowers, and things to eat. They've got a nurse that looks like striped stick candy, an' two doctors, an' more offers of help than they know what to do with. There ain't a thing we can do but watch—an' pray. An' if the Lord sees fit to call her Home——"
 
But Mrs. Hennesy, drawing the shawl again over her eyes, turned away.
 
The mist of Indian summer lay like a veil over Cherry Street. Out in the garden Miss-321- Billy's flowers were still blooming. The vines were breaking into crisp little tendrils about her window, the La France rose bush was heavy with buds, and the grass was as green and tender as when her feet had last pressed it. Miss Billy's friend, the bulldog, slept serenely on the Lee porch, and her canary trilled softly in the autumn sunshine.
 
Life seemed to have vanished from the street itself. Down near the Levi house two wooden saw-horses and a plank had been placed across the road to block all traffic, and Policeman Canary paced back and forth to ward off intruders. Grocery boys and butcher lads came and went on foot, and the children who played in the back yards were hushed and subdued by watchful parents "for Miss Billy's sake." Silence reigned everywhere, and the chirping of the twittering sparrows, that could not be hushed, was the only sound that broke the stillness.
 
Upstairs, in the little green room, where the only movement was the stirring of the thin-322- curtains in the soft wind, lay the girl herself. The active feet were quiet, the busy hands were folded and the dancing eyes were closed. There was nothing about the passive figure that was like Miss Billy. Even the mass of copper-brown hair had been cut away. But this death-like stupor was less terrifying than the intervals of raging fever in which Miss Billy laughed, sang and talked, and lived over and over again her girlish trials and hopes and fears.
 
"It's such hard work," she would say, tossing restlessly from side to side in the little bed. "Such hard work! Mr. Schultzsky, it's a lie, I tell you. He didn't hit your horse, I saw it all! It's a lie, I tell you. I didn't mean to hurt you! It's my fault, though, not Ted's!... Oh, Ted, you didn't need to step on my grass seed. Why won't you let things grow? It's so hot, so hot, here. Beatrice, you needn't be so mean! He's a friend of mine. Why won't you be kind to him? Please do, please do. He's helped me so."
 
-323-
 
Then the busy brain would go back to the old life:
 
"Myrtle Blanchard called us poor. I don't want to be poor. I hate it. I hate Cherry Street! I hate heat! I'm so tired!"
 
It was when the fever was at its height that the family first guessed the depth of Miss Billy's feeling, for in her delirium she talked wildly of wanting to go back "home," away from Cherry Street, to where everything was "quiet and clean." She longed for Margaret's home-coming, and begged piteously that the Blanchards might not "com............