[F] Farmers, in former times, while making cider, were very slovenly. When I observed a large amount of filth adhering to their boots and shoes as they carried the pumice from the vat to the press, I thought of the worms, insects, and dust, which were ground up and incorporated with the mass, I sometimes expressed surprise. "Oh," said they, "the cider will work itself clean!" If so, I thought, and still think, it must be by the operation of some law not yet discovered. It may work itself _clear_, perhaps; but to work itself _clean_, is quite another matter. CHAPTER XLIII. TAKING THE FEVER. A large family, not much more careful of their habits or cleanly about their premises than the family alluded to in the foregoing chapter, had sickened one autumn, and one of them had died. Anxious to save the rest, I again acted as physician and nurse both, and effected my object; or, at least, appeared to do so. The rest of my patients ultimately recovered. But while thus watching these patients, by night and day, standing in the very front of the battle, I suddenly sickened. The circumstances, as nearly as I can recollect them, were the following:---- Among the sick of this afflicted family was one unmarried man of rather eccentric and very unsociable habits, and exceedingly negligent both of his person and dress. His linen, and I think also his bed-clothes, were hardly changed once a month; at least as long as he was well. And then he had, of course, extended the same neglect to his sick chamber. Added to this, moreover, was a species of _necessity_ at this juncture; for so much distressed were the family, and so difficult was it to procure aid in the neighborhood, that a part of the neglect to which our old bachelor was subjected seemed unavoidable. I took notice of the neglect, spoke of it repeatedly, and labored assiduously to correct the evil. But the case seemed an almost forlorn one. I was morally obliged, as I then felt, to do a thousand things for him that usually fall to the lot of nurses and assistants. In some instances, I passed even whole nights in the family, in attendance on him and the other sick persons. My task was the more severe from the fact that a similar fever was prevailing in other parts of the town, and my labors beyond the precincts of this family were exceedingly fatiguing and severe. In truth, I was, in the end, greatly overworked and debilitated, and my system most admirably prepared for the reception of disease. For various reasons, some of which, have already been named, I often assisted in turning my bachelor-patient in his foul bed. It is true the process was so offensive that I avoided it whenever I could; but on occasions, I yielded to the pressure of necessity.