But Myrtle was too busy trying to tell me how she had managed my business. She didn’t know it, but she herself had, in prospect, a substantial interest in the printery. Before leaving the office on that dreadful day when my fever was at high pitch—I mean actual temperature—I deposited in my desk a check written in her favor, with no ifs or ands attached, for an amount which would have come near bankrupting me as of the moment—even as I have now, since I am no longer a family man, set aside the residue of my possessions, if any, in favor of the sister who had so bravely, at the risk of her face and figure, stood by me through that smallpox ordeal. After getting settled in bed that first night, I told my sister about the check in my desk, and also told her that I wanted her to see that it be paid, if, and when, it would appear appropriate to do so. I was remembering at the time the case of Myran Ash and Ella Wolverton, south of town. Ella had waited on him in his last sickness, and in the meantime picked up Myran’s check for $1,000. His relatives tried, but failed, to prevent her from cashing the check. When I boarded the train at Wetmore that same day, Charley Fletcher, the conductor, coming down the aisle gathering tickets, stopped stock-still, and backed up a few steps, when he saw me. He wouldn’t touch my Mo. Pacific pass until I had explained that it had been in the office all the time during my sickness. After first calling on my doctor, I stopped in Atchison long enough to buy a suit of clothes and other needed articles. I had left home wearing an old suit, “borrowed” from Ed Murray. On leaving the clothing store I met, or came near meeting, Mr. Redford, bookkeeper at the Green-leaf-Baker grain elevator, whom I knew quite well, having shipped grain to the firm. Taking to the street, he shied around me, but he had the decency to laugh about it—and told me that I would see Frank Crowell, of the firm, at Galveston, if I were going that way. The Kansas Grain Dealers Association was to hold a meeting in Galveston two days hence. On my way to a barbershop down the street, I had a chat with my doctor again. He was standing on the sidewalk at the bottom of the steps leading up to his office, grinning. He said, “Well, your conductor came along while I was standing here, and I asked him what did he mean by bringing that smallpox patient down from Wetmore?” Dr. Howe laughed, and said, “You know, I thought that poor fellow was going to collapse on the sidewalk, and I had to tell him quickly that you couldn’t give it to anyone if you would try.” There was one small spot on my jaw that had not properly healed, and I had asked the doctor earlier, in the office, if he thought it might cause the barber to ask questions? He said, “No, no—just go in and say nothing.” But after we had talked awhile on the sidewalk, he said, “You better hunt a fire before you go to the barbershop. Your face is as spotted as a leopard.”