was a steel spring inside that was still twanging against the fever. Once-' she swallowed with an effort, her eyes closing, 'once I felt the spring go out, right while I was holding: a wrist. Just-go-out. Just like that! Poor child!' She dropped Ruth's arm and blinked to clear her eyes. She gathered up the bottle and spoon again. 'To stations, me!, Forward!' And she marched out, robe swishing her ankle as the two in the room resumed their prayerful positions. Thiela closed the door carefully behind her and leaned against it, her head drooping, her shoulders sagging. 'Just like that!' she whispered. 'Oh, Ruth, the spring went out, just like that!' Then she backhanded the tears from her eyes, almost stabbing herself with the spoon, and started briskly down the hall the other way. By now the word had spread and there were people by the door of the men's ward. 'The general's in there,' said someone. 'The whole staff of our department,' insisted another. 'The most brilliant mathematician,' urged another. 'Don't tell me anything,' said Thiela, shaking her hear:. 'I don't want to know. I'm not equipped to decide who's important and who's not. They're all. sick. I'll get to all I can.' 'But such a brilliant career to be cut short-' insisted someone. 'Maybe the brilliance is spent,' said Thiela. 'Maybe someone else is to shine now. I don't decide. Please-' She pulled the door open and went in. The bottle poured almost empty. Two more curtained cubicles to visit. Thiela shook the scanty remnants in the bottle. If these next two lives were already spent, there would be enough for-maybe, maybe- She slipped between the next-to-the-last curtains, and, catching the flailing wrist, held it gently for a moment. She put it aside and left, the dose unpoured. Only one to go. One more dose. If only-if only- Under the groping of her fingers, she felt the resilience of life twanging away at death, stubbornly fighting back against the fever. 'Amen,' sighed Thiela. 'So be it. The last dose, here, then. The last one.' She poured it out. She fled back along the hall past the huddled group, not listening to the half-formed questions and quick, soft inquiries. She stopped in front of her door and composed herself. Quickly, quietly, she went in. Ruth was lying flat in bed, her body hardly making a mound under the sheet. Her face was turned to the wall. Dr. McGady stood at the foot of the bed, rubbing his neck and looking bewildered. 'Just all at once,' he said. 'She just went limp all over.' 'I know,' said Thiela, rounding the bed to take Ruth's hand. 'Probably even before you were born, I know.' She moved into the focus of Ruth's eyes. 'There isn't a drop left,' she said. 'Not one single bit of Aunt Sophronia left for you.' She let the tears flow as she relinquished the bottle to Dr. McGady. 'Did it work?' Ruth's lips formed the words around the soft whisper of her breath. 'I think so,' said Thiela. 'I almost know so. But for how long, we can't tell. We thought that we-' 'No,' breathed Ruth. 'Maybe you. Remember, my dreams went bad. Yours didn't-' ' But if only we had another dose-' 'No, thanks.' Ruth smiled faintly. 'This is dying time for me. There'll be Les and the kids. And I'll tell Aunt Sophronia-' Her eyes closed deeper and deeper- Ruth wasn't there any more. Thiela turned away Dr. McGady walked her over to the window. 'Will Aunt Sophronia be pleased?' he asked. 'Unless you refine her down to a shot or a pill.' Her mouth trembled, then turned upward a little. 'How can you tell you've had medicine unless it tastes bad?' She leaned on the window sill. 'We were going to go shopping,' she said, 'Or whatever the local equivalent is now. We had a bet on which of us would look best in the current fashions!' She turned, her hands behind her, and sagged against the wall. 'You don't understand yet!' she cried. 'We were going to prop each other up until we learned how to live again after dying for so many, cold, lost years! But now-but now-!' Dr. McGady awkwardly gathered her, weeping, into his arms and clumsily patted her shaking shoulders. 'Just hold on,' he muttered, 'Just hold on until jack-o'-lantern time. Then we'll have something for what ails you!' 'Blub-blubless Aunt Sophronia!' Thiela giggled and sobbed, 'Blub-bless her!' NOTE: At the last accounting, there were a total of 187 diseases or malfunctions for which Sophronium is the specific. These conditions vary widely and seem to have no relation to each other except in that they can all be cured by Sophronium. Perhaps Aunt Sophronia is pleased to know that the taste is still there. How can you tell it's medicine unless it tastes bad? THE BELIEVING CHILD NO ONE seeing me sitting here, my hands stubbornly relaxed, my face carefully placid, could possibly know that a terrible problem is gnawing at me. In fact, I can't believe it myself. It couldn't possibly be. And yet I've got to solve it. Oh, I have lots of time to find a solution! I have until 2:15. And the hands of my watch are scissoring out the minutes relentlessly. 1:45. What will I do! What will I do if 2:15 comes and I haven't got through to Dismey? She's sitting over there by Donna now, her scraggly hair close to Donna's shining, well-nourished curls. That hair of Dismey's. I saw it before I saw her face that October morning and knew, with a sigh for the entry of my forty-fifth child, that she was from the campground-a deprived child. Somehow it always shows in their hair. I breathed a brief prayer that she would be clean at least. She was-almost painfully so. Her hands and ankles were rusty with chapping, not with dirt. Her sagging dress, a soft faded blue down the front, with a hint of past pattern along the side seams and at the collar, was clean, but not ironed. Her lank, bleached-burlap hair lifelessly bracketed her thin face and descended in irregular tags roughly to her shoulders. But its combed-with-water patterns were bisected by a pink-clean parting. Well, I welcomed her to my first grade classroom, pleased that she was a girl. I was so weary of the continual oversupply of little boys. I was surprised that her mother had come with her. Usually from that area, parents just point the kids toward the bus stop and give them a shove. But there the mother was, long in the wrist and neck and face. She was wearing Levi's and a faded plaid shirt that had safety pins for buttons. She was older than I'd expect Dismey's mother to be. Her narrow shoulders were twisted to one side and a deep convex curve bent her spine out against the shirt. I couldn't tell if it was the result of a lifetime of sagging, or was an actual deformity. Her left cheek sucked, in against no-teeth, and the sharp lines that crisscrossed her face reminded me of the cracklings of thin mud drying in the sun. 'Dismey?' I asked. 'How do you spell it?' 'You're the teacher,' said her mother, her voice a little hoarse as though not used much. 'Spell it the way you want. Her name's Dismey Coven. She's six. She ain't been to school none yet. We been with the cabbages in Utah.' 'We're suppose to have a birth certificate-' I ventured. 'Never had none,' said Mrs. Coven shortly. 'She was born anyway. In Utah. When we were there with the cabbage.' So I had her repeat the name and stabbed at the spelling. I put down October for a birthdate, counting backwards far. enough to give her a birth-year to match her age-usual procedure, only sometimes they don't even know the month for sure-the crops harvesting at the time, yes, but not the month. All this time the mother had been clutching Dismey's shoulders with both hands, and Dismey had just stood there, her back pressed against her mother, her face quiet, her pale eyes watching. When I'd got all the necessary information, including the fact that unless we had free lunch for Dismey, she wouldn't eat, the mother shoved Dismey at me abruptly and told her, 'Mind the teacher.' And said to me, 'Teach her true. She's a believin' child.' And she left without another word or a backward glance. So then, where to seat my forty-fifth child in my forty-four-seat room. I took a quick census. Every child there. Not a vacant chair available. The only unoccupied seat in the room was the old backless chair I used for a stepstool and for a sin-seat in the Isolation Corner. Well, Bannie could do with a little more distance between him and Michael, and he knew the chair well, so I moved him over to the library table with it and seated Dismey by Donna, putting her in Donna's care for the day. I gave Dismey a pencil and crayolas and other necessary supplies and suggested that she get acquainted with the room, but she sat there, rigid and unmoving for so long that it worried me. I went over to her and printed her name for her on a piece of our yellow practice paper. 'Here's your name, Dismey. Maybe you'd like to see if you can write it. I'll help you.' Dismey took the pencil from me, holding it as though it were a dagger. I had to guide every finger to its
