Heaven's Gate three

Heaven’s Gate three

On Monday morning, the children were really ready to go back to school. They knew that this week was going to be a light work week since they were directing their efforts to the Easter holidays. Easter was April 12, and then after that time would be the twin’s birthday. Who wouldn’t want an Easter egg hunt followed by lots and lots of candy.

As the girls were working in class that day, Catherine was beginning to feel a little tired and itchy. She would not sit straight for her writing class and the teacher had to give her several stern stares to sit up and hold her pencil the correct way. Harriet did fine but was not following the directions for multiplying three numbers by two numbers. She seemed to be tired and itchy as well.

William was just as out of sorts as his sisters. He would not copy his spelling words ten times as the teacher directed him to. Mr. Fleming was disappointed with him and took William’s recess time away from him.

Timothy was the only one that seemed to be in fairly good health. He completed his simple addition in record time. His drawing of a farm seemed to be accurate. He read his Dick and Jane story with only one mistake. He even had enough time to pull little Cindy’s pigtails and then pretend to be reading his free time reader.

The older children walked home instead of running and did not even ask their mother for milk and cookies. They went to their rooms to change out of their nice school clothes and Mrs. Miller later found them either in bed just laying around or on the floor’s rug playing quietly with their cat.

“Children, who is ready for a little after school snack?” she said in the hallway as she had a couple of towels in her hands that she was getting ready to put in the bathroom. There was no voices of excitement that usually followed that special invitation for a treat. “Oh my do I have quiet little mice instead of children here today?”

Mrs. Miller went into the girl’s room and put her hand to the forehead of Harriet first. Then she did the same hand temperature test on Catherine. “If I didn’t know better, I’d think that you both have the same warm feeling. Do you feel okay girls? I thought that you both were happy to be back in school this morning?”

“I was fine this morning,” said Catherine as she closed her book and picked up a fan to cool herself off.

“So was I, but the room at school became rather warm and now I think that I am itching too.” said Harriet as she scratched her neck and put Pumpkin, the cat on the floor.

“Oh I think that I see some little red spots! “exclaimed Mrs. Miller. “When I was at the store this morning, I heard Janie tell Blanton, the clerk that some of the kids have measles. Her son was a little tired too.” Mrs. Miller immediately closed the window to the girls room to keep them from being in a draft. She adjusted the creamy yellow curtains to let some sunlight in but nothing else. “I’ll call the doctor and ask him to come by to check you. Now just both of you relax and stay warm while I check on William. “

The girls nodded. Harriet started picking up some of the clothes that was on the bed so she could lie down. The girls shared a large bed that had a soft mattress and a wonderful feather pillow for each. Her mother’s gift to them last Christmas was a quilt that had scraps from the clothes she had made for them. In the center was a beautiful star that came from the same pattern their grandmother had made for their mother.

Mrs. Miller rushed into William’s room to check on him. He was lying on the bed asleep. Beside him was the toy train that he had got last year at his birthday. The train was made of wood and had wheels that really moved. William had mentioned that he would like to ride on a train some day or even be a conductor. He listened for the train that tooted at about the same time in the evening. He and Billy found a book in the library on trains and shared it until it was time to return the book.

As Mrs. Miller tiptoed in the room, she peeked at William’s arms, neck and face. She believed that she could see the beginning of little red spots on her young child. She slowly reached over to put her hand on his forehead. As she did, William’s eyes opened and he gave a crooked smile. “Mommy, I think I don’t feel well. May I have a little water please?”
“Oh yes dear. Just wait until I go downstairs and get some water for all three of you. Do you feel bad anywhere else?” she asked as she gently stroked his hair.

William shook his head no and then picked up his train to look at again. Mrs. Miller noticed that his window was already closed so she left the room quietly and quickly.

Mrs. Miller knew that Timothy was at the grave of Willie putting some fresh flowers there. She told him to say another prayer and then stay only ten minutes. His next chore was to pull a few weeds from around the plants. Timothy had already finished some milk and cookies but she still wanted to make sure there were no spots. As suspected, he was clear for right now.

She headed to the phone to call Dr. Carson. Her heart was almost sure that the next week to ten days was a time period that she would wish had never happened. It never failed that in her family, someone became very sick and died young. Her biggest fear was that if something would happen to any of the children that her husband, William might feel very responsible. He might even limit the outside exposure of the family to prevent any more contact with what might be a serious if not deadly germ.

Dr. Carson agreed to stop by later and look at the children. He did mention that he had seen other patients who had the measles. He advised Mrs. Miller to continue keeping the children quiet and inside. With the night time approaching, there was no problem in the children wanting to go outside anyway. The beautiful, sunset was the last nice thing that would happen in that neighborhood for several days.