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Tears of weakness and protest ran down Mercy's cheeks as Rachel stooped to take off her oldest daughter's shoes. Kit heated the warming pan to take the chill off Mercy's bed in the corner, and Mercy buried her face in the pillows as though it were a shame past bearing that she should cause so much trouble.

Mercy was seriously ill. Twice the young doctor rode out from Hartford to bleed her. The third time he stood looking soberly down at her. "I dare not bleed her further," he said helplessly.

Rachel raised timid eyes to her husband. "Matthew—do you think—that perhaps Gershom Bulkeley might know something to help her? He is so skilled."

Matthew's lips tightened. "I have said that man does not come into my house," he reminded her. "We will hear no more about it."

Rachel, already worn from the long vigil with Judith, was near the breaking point. Matthew, after working in the fields all day, forced his wife against her will to get some rest while he sat by his daughter's bedside at night. Judith watched helplessly, still too weak even to comb her own hair. The meals fell to Kit, and she did the best she could with them, measuring out the corn meal, stirring up the pudding, spooning it into a bag to boil, and cursing the clumsiness that she had never taken the pains to overcome. She built up the fire, heated kettles of water for the washing, so that Mercy might have fresh linen under her restless body. She fetched water, and strained a special gruel for Judith, and spread her uncle's wet clothes to dry before the fire. At night she dozed off, exhausted, and woke with a start sure that something was left undone.

Mercy lay on some remote borderland between sleeping and waking. Nothing could rouse her, and every breath was such a painful struggle that the slow rasp of it filled the whole house. Fear seeped in at the corners of the room. The family dared not speak above a whisper, though certainly Mercy was beyond hearing. On the fourth morning of Mercy's illness Matthew did not go to work at all, but sat heavily at the table, turning the pages of the Bible, searching in vain for some hope to cling to, or shut himself in the company room where they heard his heavy tread back and forth, back and forth, the length of the room. Toward noontime he took down his coat from the peg. "I am going out for a time," he said hoarsely.

He had one sleeve in the coat when a knock sounded at the door, and as he drew back the bolt a man's voice grated harshly through the silent room.

"Let me in, man. I've something to say."

Matthew Wood stepped back from door, and the Reverend Bulkeley loomed on the kitchen threshold.

"Matthew," he said, "you're a stubborn mule and a rebel. But this is no time for politics. Time was your Mercy was like my own daughter. Let me see her, Matthew. Let me do what I can, with God's help, to save her."

Matthew's voice was almost a sob. "Come in, Gershom," he choked. "God bless you! I was coming to fetch you."

Dr. Bulkeley's solid presence brought to them all new hope. "I have a theory," he told them. "I've read something like it, and 'twill do no harm to try. Cook me some onions in a kettle."

For four long hours Kit labored at Dr. Bulkeley's bidding. She sliced onions, blinking her eyes against the stinging tears. She kept the fire blazing under the iron kettle. When the onions were cooked to just the right softness, Dr. Bulkeley piled them in a mass on a linen napkin and applied the blistering poultice to Mercy's chest. As soon as the poultice cooled a new one must be ready.

Late in the afternoon the doctor rose to his feet. "There are others I must tend to," he muttered. "Keep her warm. I'll be back before midnight."

Kit busied herself to prepare a meal which none of them could eat. With fingers so heavy from fatigue and fear that she could scarcely force them to move, she cleared the table and put away the untouched food. She wondered if ever again she would escape from the sound of that dreadful breathing. Her own lungs ached with every sighing