There was another question to be considered. The nurses would have their hands full with their patient. Some one must stay in the house and look after things, see that they needed nothing, and get some kind of meals. Starr, of course, knew absolutely nothing about cooking, and Michael's experience was limited to roasting sweet potatoes around a bonfire at college, and cooking eggs and coffee at the fireplace on the farm. But a good cook to stay in a plague-stricken dwelling would be a thing of time, if procurable at all; so the doctor decided to accept the willing services of these two. Starr was established in her own room upstairs, which could be shut away from the front part of the house by a short passage-way and two doors, with access to the lower floor by means of the back stairs; and Michael made a bed of the soft couch in the tiny reception room where he had twice passed through trying experiences. Great curtains kept constantly wet with antiseptics shut away the sick room and adjoining apartments from the rest of the house.
It was arranged that Michael should place such supplies as were needed at the head of the stairs, just outside the guarding curtains, and the nurses should pass all dishes through an antiseptic bath before sending them downstairs again. The electric bells and telephones with which the house was well supplied made it possible for them to communicate with one another without danger of infection.
Starr was at once vaccinated and the two young people received many precautions, and injunctions, with medicine and a strict régime; and even then the old doctor shook his head dubiously. If those two beautiful faces should have to pass through the ordeal of that dread disease his old heart would be quite broken. All that skill and science could do to prevent it should be done.
So the house settled down to the quiet of a daily routine; the busy city humming and thundering outside, but no more a part of them than if they had been living in a tomb. The card of warning on the door sent all the neighbors in the block scurrying off in a panic to Palm Beach or Europe; and even the strangers passed by on the other side. The grocery boy and the milkman left their orders hurriedly on the front steps and Michael and Starr might almost have used the street for an exercise ground if they had chosen, so deserted had it become.
But there was no need for them to go farther than the door in front, for there was a lovely side and back yard, screened from the street by a high wall, where they might walk at will when they were not too busy with their work; which for their unskilled hands was hard and laborious. Nevertheless, their orders were strict, and every day they were out for a couple of hours at least. To keep from getting chilled, Michael invented all sorts of games when they grew tired of just walking; and twice after a new fall of snow they went out and had a game of snowballing, coming in with glowing faces and shining eyes, to change wet garments and hurry back to their kitchen work. But this was after the first few serious days were passed, and the doctor had given them hope that if all went well there was a good chance of the patient pulling through.