Ten or twelve days ago, Susie was taken sick, & Livy removed her to our room & tended her two or three days & nights. New Years’ morning she was well again; but Bay was taken alarmingly ill that night—threatened with membranous croup. She remained dangerously ill Sunday, Monday & Tuesday; all that time we kept two croup-kettles going, both night & day, filling the room with steam; but Tuesday afternoon the membrane yielded & dissolved, & our fears were at an endⒶemendation. However, our most prodigious fright occurred the second day—Sunday; a week ago to-day. A croup-kettle set fire to Bay’s crib & canopy, & Rosa snatched Bay from the midst of the flames, just in time to save her life. Then Rosa & I threw the burning bedding out of the window—though it looked, for a while, as if the house must go.

Last night Bay was siezedⒶemendation with scary symptoms of pneumonia & we had the doctor out. However, good nursing & dosing, last night fetched Bay all right again this morning.

Well, a couple of hours ago, Julia the wet nurse snatched the sleeping Jean from another flaming crib!—this time not o in our bedroom but in the nursery. The bedclothes, the lace canopy, & even the pillow were blazing, at the time, & the poor little chap got a slight burn on the cheek, & some of the hair was singed from the top of her head.

A spark had flown through the fire-screen while Julia was absent in Susie’s room making up a bed. She happened to step into the nursery, & the first thing she saw was the rising gust of flame. She snatched Jean out & screamed. I heard her from the library & flew up there—found the crib a bed of flames, & the floor littered with flaming remnants of the canopy. Rosa & arrived right at my heels, & she & I flung the bedding out of the window & stamped out the fire on the floor with our feet. We got our hands burned again, of course; & I greatly wonder that Rosa’s clothing escaped, for the blazes on the floor were thick & lively. We have ordered better screens from New York, now.

Will you send this to Orion?