The child was isolated and cared for, but in due time backaches and headaches foretold the coming of the dreaded disease, and preparations were made for anticipated results. The Cottage was vacated, and the sick were conveyed thither. The disease took a variety of forms. There were those who had nothing but the symptoms, or a pustule or two; some had a few dozen on them, scattered from head to foot; they were almost absolutely well; they refused to be made invalids of; they kept at work on the farm or were only disabled for a day or two when the disease was at its height. The lighter cases increased in number, and finally the Direction saw it was useless to try to isolate all, and that the disease must have its run, and they must trust to fate for final results. The worst cases were in the improvised hospital, under the care of kindly nurses. "Hired," say you? No; not a bit of it! but dear, kind women and men volunteered to attend to this sacred duty, and after weeks of imprisonment, came out with the glory of having protected every life, and the Associated family lost not a member. There were more than thirty cases. The simple diet, the pure air and the healthy mental stimulus of cheerful lives, with the knowledge that they were something more than in name a united body, must have had its effect, for the whole trouble passed away like a summer shower, and left no permanent impression on the society. There were three or four extreme cases, but only one or two persons who bore scars that were defacements, and there was no panic in our midst. The members took the whole matter with wonderful coolness. Like a shower it wiped out the army of visitors! When any persons came, an attendant warned them of our condition ere they reached the Hive door, and they precipitately retreated. Occasionally only, a carriage or a few persons travelled the accustomed ways. Not until the epidemic had passed did the interminable throng resume its accustomed walk, or strange faces appear at the "visitors' table," and our many constant and cheerful friends greet us again as of yore. The labor of the Association was much disarranged, and there was loss in many ways, but it was truly to be congratulated that it escaped from such an unusual danger as comfortably as it did. From the first days of the Community until its close, there was only one death on the farm, and that of the person described in a former chapter. CHAPTER VII. MY SECOND SPRING. All through the spring the talk was of the new building, the "Phalanstery," as we called it. Everybody was thinking what great progress could be made when we should live in it. One day, passing by, I found the carpenters had resumed work, and from thenceforth it progressed until it assumed the resemblance of a mammoth house.