Nor was she happy on the job. She was not good at teaching worms. She believed them both stupid and stubborn. They did not have her sympathy, and after a few weeks they seemed to make her sick. * * * * * But her ailment was a mysterious one. None of the young doctors had ever seen anything like it. And it was contagious. Other women in the bright new laboratory began to show similar symptoms. Yet contagion there was impossible, such extreme precautions had been taken for the protection of the worms. But Georgina did not respond to treatment. And Hickle's Disease was definitely spreading. Sharper young doctors fresh from the greatest medical schools were called in. They knew all that was to be known of all the new diseases. But they did not know this. Georgina felt queer now and odd things began to happen to her. Like that very morning on her way to work, that old lady had stared at her. "Glory be," said the old lady, "a miracle." And she crossed herself. And Georgina heard other comments. "I don't believe it. It isn't possible," a man said. "Well, it sure does look like it," said a woman. So Georgina took off at noon to visit a psychiatrist and tell him that she imagined that people were staring at her and talking about her, and what should she do. It made her uneasy, she said. "That's not what is making you uneasy," said the psychiatrist. Then he went with her to the laboratory to have a look at some of the other women suffering from this Hickle's Disease that he had been hearing about. After that, he called the young doctors at the laboratory aside for a consultation. "I don't know by what authority you mean to instruct us," said one. "You haven't been upgraded for thirty years." "I know it." "You are completely out of touch with the latest techniques." "I know it." "You have been described--accurately I believe--as an old fogy." "I know that too." "Then what could you tell us about a new appearance like Hickle's Disease?" "Only that it is not really new. And not, properly speaking, a disease." * * * * * That is why, even today, there are superstitious persons who keep McGonigal's Worms in small mesh cages in the belief that they insure fertility. It is rank nonsense and rose only because it was in the M.W. laboratory that the return of pregnancy was first noticed and was named for one of the women working there. It is a belief that dates back to that ancient generation, which very nearly became the last generation. The official explanation, is that the Earth and its solar system, for a period of thirty-five years, was in an area of mysterious cosmic radiation. And afterward it drifted out of that area. But there are many who still believe in the influence of McGonigal's Worm. End of the Project Gutenberg EBook of McGonigal's Worm, by R. A. Lafferty