In a few minutes they had passed under the bare , glistening boughs of the poplars on David 's lawn , and for the first time Josephine crossed the threshold of David Hartley 's house . Years ago , in her girlhood , when the Hartley 's lived in the old house and there were half a dozen girls at home , Josephine had frequently visited there . All the Hartley girls liked her except Zillah . She and Zillah never `` got on '' together . When the other girls had married and gone , Josephine gave up visiting there . She had never been inside the new house , and she and Zillah had not spoken to each other for years . Zillah was a sick woman -- too sick to be anything but civil to Josephine . David started at once for the doctor at the Creek , and Josephine saw that he was well wrapped up before she let him go . Then she mixed up a mustard plaster for Zillah and sat down by the bedside to wait . When Mrs. Tom Sentner came down the next day she found Josephine busy making flaxseed poultices , with her lips set in a line that betokened she had made up her mind to some disagreeable course of duty . `` Zillah has got pneumonia bad , '' she said , in reply to Mrs. Tom 's inquiries . `` The Doctor is here and Mary Bell from the Creek . She 'll wait on Zillah , but there 'll have to be another woman here to see to the work . I reckon I 'll stay . I suppose it 's my duty and I do n't see who else could be got . You can send Mamie and Jack down to stay at my house until I can go back . I 'll run over every day and keep an eye on things . '' At the end of a week Zillah was out of danger . Saturday afternoon Josephine went over home to see how Mamie and Jack were getting on . She found Mrs. Tom there , and the latter promptly despatched Jack and Mamie to the post-office that she might have an opportunity to hear Josephine 's news .
`` I 've had an awful week of it , Ida , '' said Josephine solemnly , as she sat down by the stove and put her feet up XXXXX the glowing hearth .
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