The Passionate and the Proud Read Free

outbreak here. You’ve seen those splotches on the faces of some of the children? By tomorrow those sores will be open and suppurating. Beware the pus, it’s deadly. You’re going to need—”
    “But what about Tessie?” cried Emmalee. “What about Peter Weller?”
    Dr. Legatt’s voice was gentle, soothing. But his words were blunt.
    “The strong will survive,” he said. “Some will be scarred for life, some not, depending upon how severely they are stricken. But”—he lifted his strong, well-cared-for hands and let them fall—“many will die. It’s in God’s hands now. There’s little medicine can do. As I was about to say, you’re going to need help. I’ll contact people in town who’ve survived the disease. Some of them will help you out, I’m sure. Of course, they’ll have to live here. The orphanage will have to be quarantined until late spring, at least.”
    “Dear lord,” the reverend said. “And what about Emmalee? She’s been in close contact with the sick children for almost a week now, isn’t that right?”
    Emmalee nodded her corroboration. One of the doctor’s phrases kept running through her mind: The strong will survive, the strong will survive, the strong will survive…
    “Ever have smallpox, Emmalee?” demanded Dr. Legatt, scowling at her. He saw her peerless, fair winter-tinted skin, ruddy in the cheeks, her face framed by thick, dark-blond hair that was like ancient gold. He held her violet eyes with his gaze, expecting the truth.
    “I—I think I had it…when I was a child,” Emmalee told him. “That’s what my mother told me. But it was a mild case.”
    “It certainly was. If you had it at all. There’s not a mark on you. By the way, how old are you?”
    “Sixteen in April.”
    The doctor’s eyes widened. “Forgive my surprise,” he said. “You look at least twenty. Forgive me, again. We gruff old doctors lose our manners faster than…but I assumed you were an employee here? A nurse or teacher, perhaps?”
    “No,” Superintendent Bowerly corrected, “Emmalee is one of our charges. She looks and acts more mature than her years suggest, and thank God for that. She’s been a tremendous help to us.”
    Dr. Legatt shrugged resignedly. “Well, she’ll have to be quarantined like all the rest,” he said. “You haven’t had any contact with individuals outside the home recently, have you?” he asked Emmalee.
    Instantly Emmalee’s eyes met the Reverend Bowerly’s, and in shocked unison they pronounced the name.
    “Val Jannings!”
    The Lutheran orphanage was situated on the crest of a wooded, gently sloping hill that rose on the eastern bank of the Mississippi River. Chapel, stables, sheds, and dormitories sparkled white in the April sunshine, white against the green of new grass, and the even brighter green of budding trees and bushes. Emmalee took from the orphanage’s pantry half a loaf of bread, a chunk of salami, and a small stone jug full of cow’s milk, and went out onto the lawn to celebrate her sixteenth birthday. For distraction, she brought along a copy of the Cairo Bulletin, freshly printed and dated April 12, 1868.
    Emmalee celebrated alone. She had toiled and prayed through the long months of winter, had cared for the stricken from long before dawn until past midnight, until she fell into fretful, exhausted sleep. But to little avail. She picnicked alone because she walked now like a living ghost in a lost house emptied of blood and brood. Tessie was dead, and Peter Weller. Louise Bunyon and the Reverend Bowerly were gone. Dozens of others, dead too, were resting down there in the grove of trees below the hill, where the new white crosses stood, mutely admonishing Emmalee for the temerity of having survived.
    Val Jannings did not lie beneath one of those small, neatly carpentered pine crosses. His family had afforded him a mausoleum in the fashionable cemetery outside Cairo, with a big stone angel guarding the door. Emmalee had been asked not