My word! What a day! MT here & I've finally managed to get that idiot man to bed, hopefully to stay, for several hours. Honestly, he simply MUST get over this fool notion that the household will collapse if he's not there to oversee every aspect of it. Did he really think he could hide anything from me? Everything going fine, updates whispered through the door whenever he got them, then... nothing other than: "Oh, everything is fine; they're just staying at Drew's overnight. The boys? Oh Greg got a bit excited over nothing, don't worry about it...!"

Well, between Cindy sitting & fretting, biting her nails & wearing a chronic, anxious look & the sounds of Maxine & Thomas obviously dealing with something, I'd finally had enough. I'm doing no one any good cooped up in a bedroom & obviously something was happening.

I simply marched myself out of that room, telling Cindy to stay in there & find something else to whine at; there was work to be done! Maxine & Thomas were decidedly not happy to see me "break quarantine", but too bad! From what I could hear, they were in over their heads, or simply thought they were. I'm with Anne; that child does NOT have smallpox. He's simply overwrought, hungry & terrified. Who wouldn't be in his shoes? A little mite of four who had to watch his parents sicken & die, had little enough to eat, then managed to walk half a mile, poorly dressed ;through shoulder high snow. I don't wonder he's ill. No, he simply has a bad cold complicated with malnutrition & sorrow. I'm disappointed in Thomas for not figuring that out for himself. Good gracious! We're tougher stock than that & as small as that boy is, he showed more common sense than Thomas is doing right now.

And if Thomas thought I couldn't figure out his heart was trying to cut up again! I told Maxine & we managed to get a tranquilizer into him shortly after I came downstairs & now we slipped a - what would you call it? - a Mickey Finn into his after supper tea. He's out cold, back in the dining room on the sofa & there he is staying! Anne would have his head were she here. As to a sprained ankle, Thomas forgets that girl was the biggest tomboy for miles in her day. I don't know how many weeks she spent laid up with breaks, sprains, strains & chafed at the restrictions. If she says it's sprained, it's sprained, NOT broken. She has more sense than to downplay a broken ankle. I spoke to her over that walkie talkie thing & she's doing exactly what she should be doing - keeping it elevated & on ice & not being shy to take medication for pain.

There's nothing here Maxine & I can't handle & frankly, I think she's relieved to have Thomas out of the way for a bit. Men! But perhaps I should take a leaf out of my own book & calm down. Honestly though, men can be such senseless fools. In any case, it only took about three hours for Maxine & I to get everything straightened out & the house in order again. I even put Cindy to work, in her room. She's pregnant, not dying & is perfectly capable to cutting up vegetables in there. They get cooked anyway, so no worries about any infection there.

If anyone from the future is interested in my opinion, I feel that if smallpox gets into the house, nothing but God's grace & basic common sense will prevent all of us from catching it. I've read the material young Andy downloaded, as well as some Texts Anne had brought home. That revoltingly detailed book by that Preston fellow really opened my eyes. If it moves around the way smoke does; well... I can smell the smoke all over this house from the wood stove & if I can smell it, the fumes are in the room - as smallpox would be. Instead of cowering like a scared rabbit, I'd rather be of use to everyone & keep some semblence of order if others seem inclined to panic.

At any rate, I got the little fellow cleaned up & calmed down. I took his temperature a couple of times & it most definitely is NOT smallpox. If Thomas had stayed rational, he'd have remembered that smallpox fevers STAY up until the sores break out on the skin or inside the mouth. The child doesn't have a mark on him or in his mouth; he's simply all worn out. He's had a bath, changed into clean jammies & had 2 bowls of my good chicken soup - the one with lots of garlic. I even found some dumplings frozen that I managed to thaw & put in. He'd never had that sort of thing & loved it. That, a bowl of ice cream later with a tiny bit of caramel sauce & some juice & he just nodded right off. That boy didn't need to be left alone with 2 other children, I don't care what the percieved risk was. He needed lots of hugs & somebody to hold him. He'll be just fine.

Greg, poor little one; was scared to death that he'd brouoght sickness into the house. He's done no such thing & I've told him that. He simply acted as I'd want any of my family to act; with courage & compassion. From the sounds of it, he's been a trouper, keeping both of the younger lads occupied while inside, he must have been dying with worry.

And Maxine, I don't know how much more Thomas expected of her. Oh she can easily do everything on her own, but I defy anyone to work well & efficiently with Thomas hovering over them. He's simply going to have to learn to trust the abilities of others. After all, he raised his children & if, at their age, he can't let them plan & work alone, he must think pretty poorly of himself as a parent. I'll be having a talk with that boy!

Now as to yesterday's outing. It did indeed go very well, no real surprises or hitches & they did very well in terms of what they found. Andy, (I spoke to him out of the hearing of others), came over to see for himself how his dad was doing & he brought me a partial list of what they'd managed to get at the supply store before going back to the farm. All kinds of good garden seeds, Drew was smart enough to make sure they got seeds for lots of root crops & other vegetables we can easily freeze or preserve. They've hidden all kids of hand tools, both for gardening & work around the farm & house. They brought home with them leather strapping, cordage, duct tape & several cases of batteries. They hid the few horse collars that were there as well as three full sets of harness for draft teams. Drew is pretty sure he can rig up a double team to an old plough in one of his back sheds. They "scored", (to use Andy's term!), a great deal of plastic sheeting, both thin & heavy & chlorine piece, pucks Andy called them, that we can use to disinfect water. Drew found lime & they brought home a few buckets of that & hid quite a bit more. Perfect for an outhouse!

They had a good day today, other than my poor Annie who apparently was rather upset with herself for slipping so easily. They unloaded the items they obtained into a shed, had a warm meal, cleaned up & went to bed. Noreen woke them up at about three this afternoon & insisted they eat another hearty meal before doing anything else. She was smart enough to make sure they all drank a fair amount & before they left, had another meal ready for them.

The snow last night was a real boon. Just enough to cover their tracks & not quite enough to hamper their efforts tonight. They're hoping it won't slow them too badly as tonight, the trip may be a bit more difficult. They'll be going to the mall a few hundred yards away from the feed store & they have quite a list of items to try & find & hopefully, carry home. Now obviously they can't come close to carrying anywhere close to a small percentage of it home, but the more they can get, the better. What they can't bring home immediately, they'll try & prioritize & hide somewhere, making sure SOME is left for others in order to prevent other people from locating what they've hidden.

Anyhow, Anne is now minding the farm & the radio & Noreen has replaced her for the rest of these supply runs. Anne radioed me shortly after six to tell me they'd left. It's nine o'clock now & they seem to have made it safely to the mall. Now it's just a matter of waiting for more reports. In the meantime, I can certainly keep myself busy.

There, it's ten o'clock & I've made the rounds of the house. I sent Maxine to bed sometime after nine as she'll be on watch from about two in the morning until we hear our people have safely returned to the farm. The boys are all sleeping peacefully & young Timmy is thankfully, fever free for now. Cindy seems to be asleep as well. Good, I have plenty for her to do tomorrow.

I let the two other boys out of their room some time before supper. They had more than enough energy to burn & I sent them both out to bring in some firewood from the garage. We're burning quite a bit a day, I don't know how much, but I must remember to keep track tomorrow. I showed Greg how to bank a fire for the night, to keep it alive, the house warm & preserve fuel. It's not that hard & he's old enough & capable enough. Tomorrow if there's time, I'll show him how to clear away the ashes without burning down half the house. Sam has a pretty good ash pit going out back. I wonder, if I thought hard about it; if I could remember how my grandmother made soap? That might interest the kids & it would certainly be useful for laundry & other such jobs. It would let us save the nicer soap for cleaning ourselves.

I'm making sure those children have a good bath tomorrow too. Saving water is one things, but so is fusty smells in the house- ugh! There hair is far too oily & as much as they don't mind NOT bathing, some standards have to be kept up. They'll have those AFTER they do some chores though. There's a lot of dust flying around & no excuse for it! A dirty house does nothing to keep illness away & what the boys can't reach, Cindy can. Like it or not, tomorrow that young lady is marching herself downstairs with a smile on, a better attitude & is doing some WORK! She'll have time enough to laze about in her last few weeks of confinement - to again quote my grandmother.

Now then, eleven thirty or thereabouts & Sam just radioed in to Anne. They've already loaded a number of cases of soups, stews & other ready made snacks, (you won't find ME calling those canned things meals!), & have topped them off with lighter cartoons of spices & seasonings. I told them to be sure to get plenty of salt & pepper, especially pepper. It seems there is still still a fair amount of stock in the backrooms of the grocery store; unfortunately not nearly as much rice & flour as they would have liked & I told Anne to pass on that they really should make sure they hide some of that away for tomorrow night. Anne gave them another list for the drug store, syringes, needles, sterile water & bottles of powdered antibiotics, as well as heart & blood pressure medications. I hope she remembered my water pills. Thomas may need those at some point.

It's just after midnight & Thomas woke briefly; had to use the washroom. He was still quite groggy, so after assuring him that everyone in the house was sleeping soundly & that Anne was fine & our adventurers doing well, he staggered back to the sofa & has dropped straight off. With some luck, he'll sleep right through until seven or thereabouts. Now, it's time for me to make a final round & ake Maxine for her tour of duty.

Maybe she'll write something in here. Poor woman has hardly had time to breathe, never mind write. I suspect she's rather looking forward to a night awake with no one making demands on her.