“What’s the matter with you?” And Jed gasped, as though in agony:
“Git Doctor Crapo, ’Miah. I’m a-dying. I got a turrible pain in my stummick.”
’Miah studied him; he said incredulously:
“It’s belly-ache.”
Jed wagged his wicked old head and groaned again.
“All right, ’Miah; but git the doctor, anyhow. I’m a-dying, sure.”
There was always a chance that this might be true. ’Miah sent for the doctor, and Doctor Crapo, a young man then and not so wise as he would later be, questioned Jed, and took pulse and temperature, and said with some solemnity:
“I don’t know. You’ve got no fever, but your heart is jumpy. I guess—Well, you’re getting along, you know. If this pain is what you say, it’s just the beginning of one of those ailments that come on old men sometimes. Nothing I can do for it at your age.”
“It’s a-killing me,” Jed pleaded weakly, and the doctor said:
“Well, I can physic you, of course; but if it’s just a stomach-ache, it will stop anyway, and if it’s something worse, physic won’t do a bit of good.”