Some years after this she was obliged to suspend her school on account of an alarm of smallpox. A number of her scholars, among whom were my mother and uncles, were inoculated with smallpox virus, put in a pesthouse, and Ma’am Price, in whose experience and judgment the parents reposed the greatest confidence, employed to take care of them.
It was customary, before the discovery of Jenner, to inoculate with smallpox matter; but the patients being first put under a strict régime and properly and seasonably cared for, the disorder was not much more severe than varioloid. It was seldom that a patient died or was even pitted.
These young persons had been long kept on water gruel and were convalescent, when Hugh McLellan, by aid of friends outside, procured two lobsters. The whole company were around the table about to partake, when Ma’am Price made her appearance, and forbade them to take a mouthful, saying it would kill them. They were, however, resolved to eat, live or die. When unable to prevent them, for the boys were large, she took out her box that was filled full of yellow Scotch snuff, strewed it over the fish, and stirred it in with a spoon. Though provoked enough at the moment, they cherished no ill-will against her; at least I think not, when I recollect the number of presents the boys and girls, whose parents were Ma’am Price’s scholars, used to carry to Turkey Lane.
The good lady’s house was a great resort for captains of vessels, with whom her husband had been acquainted in the West Indies, and who brought her a great many presents,--fruit, shells, coral, eyestones, and vanilla beans. People who got anything in the eye would go to her to have an eyestone put in, and the old ladies went there for sweet-scented beans to put in their snuff-boxes.
We were everlastingly teasing to carry some present to Ma’am Price, and we found our account in so doing. She would put the eyestones in a saucer and pour in vinegar, when they would crawl all over the saucer. She would show us old pictures, needlework, and beautiful shells, and tell us stories about the West Indies and the pirates. And always when we carried a present, she gave us tamarind or guava jelly, or some West India fruit.