First, she got out of the store some mackerel and bound them, just as they came out of the barrel, brine and all, to the soles of the feet of both the mother and children.
This simple remedy acted like a charm, for in about three hours the fever began to break. Agnes put on fresh mackerel as before, removing the first ones, which, startling as it may seem, were perfectly putrid, though reeking with the strong salt brine when she applied them.
By nine o'clock that night the noble young woman had the inexpressible delight of seeing her poor patients so far changed for the better as to be completely out of danger.
On the next morning, true to his promise, the dead-wagon man came around. He was one of those in-bred wicked spirits which take delight in hating everything and everybody good and beautiful; just as the Greek peasant hated Aristides, and voted for his banishment, because he was surnamed the "good." This fellow already hated Agnes, and his ugly face was contorted with a hideous grin, as he thrust himself in at the store door and exclaimed:
"Hallo! where's them dead 'uns? fetch 'em out!"
Agnes had not expected him to put his threat of coming the next morning into execution. She was therefore somewhat taken aback on beholding him.
But she was a girl of steady, powerful nerves, and cool temper, and the instant she saw that the fellow had made up his mind to behave the way he did merely to vex and harass her, she made up her mind to "settle him off."
Paying no heed therefore to what he said, Agnes quietly put on her hat and shawl took her umbrella in her hand, and stepping directly up to the brutal wretch said, in a determined tone of voice:
"Come along with me; I intend to give you such a lesson that you will not forget in a hurry. You have given me impudence enough for the rest of your life. You have got to go back now with me to the office of the Superintendent, where I will have you discharged and then punished as you deserve."
Perhaps thoughts of dark and cruel acts he had already been guilty of, flashed across his mind, and made him tremble for the consequences to himself. He evidently believed that Agnes knew more about him than he thought. Or perhaps it was that mysterious influence which a positive mind in motion—like Miss Arnold's—wields over a vacillating temperament like the dead-wagon driver's.