you go down in the cellar and bring me one of those bottles of blackberry cordial, to keep up my strength till Dr. Pegram comes.’
“Mary Alice and me were smitten dumb right there where we was at, on our knees. ‘Kate Negley,’ I got the voice to say, ‘are you sure them are your right-minded wishes, and not the devil speaking through you?’ ‘I tell you to do what I say, and hurry up!’ Kate says. ‘Do you reckon I want to die?’
“Mary Alice rose and walked out with never a word; but if I ever saw complete disgust wrote on anybody’s face, it was hers. I had to go down and get the blackberry cordial myself, and you ought to have seen Kate make away with it. Then I went out and started off Tommy T. and pa.
“Old Dr. Pegram was there inside of three hours, dosing out big pills for Kate to take every half-hour, and powders every fifteen minutes; and it looked like Kate couldn’t swallow them fast enough to suit her. Dr. Pegram told ma and me that Kate had a mild case of the grippe, and there wasn’t no earthly danger.
“When Dr. Negley and pa come poking in after midnight that night, wore out and muddy, you never saw as happy a woman in your life as Kate. She laughed and she cried, and she hugged the doctor, and she kissed him, and she said there never was anybody like him, that he was her sweet angel from heaven, and the dearest darling on earth, and she knew she wouldn’t have no chance to die, now he had come and would know just what to do for her. And I reckon the doctor was the worst-astonished man that ever was; but he was a heap too polite and kind to let on, and went on dosing out physic for her just as if there wasn’t anything out of the common. And never a word did he ever say to her, either, about having his camp-hunt broke up; and that’s the reason I know he’s sanctified, for, like I told ma, what sainted martyr could do better?
“Of course the Station was shaken to the foundations over Kate acting that way, and there was a big time of rejoicing amongst the scoffers. And Mary Alice Welden hasn’t spoken to Kate since, and says she never will. But I tell Mary Alice she ought to be ashamed of herself; that she’s too ready in her judgments, and needs to make allowance for humans being humans, and for folks changing with circumstances.”
Lucy S. Furman.
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