Sophie didn’t like this suggestion at all and said, “I want to go home first and talk to him.” But Dr. Railston replied, “We don’t want your husband to be in contact with the pox, so it would be best for you and him not to be together just yet. Let me go and I’ll explain the situation to him.”

At the shop, Henry was finally convinced to accept the arrangement, and went upstairs, put together some of Sophie’s things, and she got settled at the Railstons’ house. While the women carried out his instructions, the doctor reread the pamphlet. It described how everyone in a contaminated house or ship could best be quarantined, how they must not be permitted to come into contact with other people, and what treatment was most effective. People who had previously survived the pox were not known to have it again.

Word of the illness swept through Hillsborough in an hour or two, and the community agreed to support Dr. Railston when he imposed a strict quarantine on Miss Norma and everyone she had contacted during the three days since she had returned from Norfolk. Sophie remained in the doctor’s house, and he soon realized the possible consequences from the exposure of the two wives to the disease. This illness equaled in seriousness any case he could find in the texts he studied. The following morning, Miss Norma was worse off, and Railston began thinking about what he could do for Sophie and his wife. After cleaning himself and changing his own clothes, he went to the leather shop to talk to Henry.

“Henry, ever since I studied medicine I’ve seen cases of smallpox, and during the last few years we’ve learned a few new things. First of all, let me tell you that it’s not a hopeless case; many people recover once they’ve been infected. It’s true that entire Indian tribes have been wiped out by smallpox, and in Iceland and Greenland more than one-third of the population died in epidemics, but nowadays in England and the rest of Europe, about eight out of ten people recover from the disease. They’ve been exposed all their lives and those that didn’t die may have had small cases. In fact, I may have been in contact with the pox when I was a boy.