When he returned two weeks later, I went to the big house for supper. Miles picked disinterestedly at his ham, prepared by the widow woman who cooked for him.

“They took me to their summer cottage in Maine. Cottage! It was bigger than this house. We had lobster. I ate my salad first, real slow, so I could watch how they got at that lobster and not let on like I was ignorant. It wasn’t too hard to eat.”

“What’s it like?”

“Like a great big old crawdad.”

I giggled. “Was it good?”

“Oh, my! I wish we could get it here. You dip it in melted butter. One of these days I’ll take you up there and buy you one.”

“One of these days mules will fly. In the meantime, I’ll enjoy this here ham and sweet potatoes.”

He had come back with his corn-colored hair parted in the middle and cut short, “like they wear in Boston.” He looked very young. After dinner we went to sit by the fireplace and he smoked a cigar he brought back with him.

“We had Baked Alaska for dessert,” he said.

“Well, while you was having Baked Alaska, we was having typhoid.”

“What?”

“Typhoid. We had five cases while you was gone. Two died and one is like to go any time. Hit’s the season for it.”

He sighed. “I reckon I got to come back down to earth, dont I?”

“I been looking around. The privies is built over the creek and that’s where most folks gits their water. With this many folks living cramped together, you got to build new privies, deep ones, and treat them with chemicals. That, or bring water into the houses. If you dont, you’ll keep right on gitting typhoid.”

He frowned. “I don’t know if they’ll approve that. They aren’t spending any money on living facilities right now. They’re talking new tipple. Privies or plumbing would take some money.”

“Sounds to me like they got some money.”

He wrote, after much prodding on my part, and asked permission to install new sanitary facilities at Vulcan. The answer came back in a week. There was no money in the budget for such frills. As for disease in the camp, it was caused by the filthy habits of the miners and their families.

I was furious. “They built this here camp. They built the privies where they are. Anybody on Scary Creek will call you a fool ifn you build your privy next to your drinking water. Is that how they do things in Boston?”

“Don’t be silly, Carrie.”

“Dont call me silly. Who do them people think they are? And what are you going to do about it?”

“I’ve done all I can do. I took a risk bringing it up to them in the first place. They don’t like to be bothered by details.”

“And that’s all you got to say?”

“That’s all I’ve got to say.”