After my walk the other night I really wanted to know if my memory of the Little House on the Prairie book was correct, and it was! I started to read the books all over again, and in the second one of the series (that's the one that's actually called Little House on the Prairie) I found what I was looking for, I couldn't find anything about my night air recollection, though. In chapter fifteen, called Fever 'n' Ague the whole family gets sick with malaria.That's where I read this:
"Mrs. Scott said that all this sickness came from eating watermelons. She said: 'I've said a hundred times, if I have once, that watermelons - '
'What's that?' Pa exclaimed. 'Who's got watermelons?'
'What's that?' Pa exclaimed. 'Who's got watermelons?'
Mrs. Scott said that one of the settlers had planted watermelons in the creek bottom. And every soul who had eaten one of those melons was down sick that very minute. She said she had warned them. 'But, no,' she said. 'There was no arguing with them. They would eat those melons, and now they're paying for it.'
[...] No one knew, in those days, that fever 'n' ague was malaria, and that some mosquitoes give it to people when they bite them."
4 comments:
I really want to read A Little Princess and The Secret Garden. Are those your chickens?
Ohhh, it has been along time since I read these books. Laura Ingalls was my hero as a kid.
Deze boeken heb ik nooit gelezen. Ik was wel helemaal fan van 'Anne of Green Gables' (dat zich in Canada afspeelt).
I used to read those when I was a child. I loved them. Can't malaria be caught through the water? Then the water would of also gotten to the watermelons.
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