"I will tell you," declared the doctor briskly, with a sudden change of manner, whisking about in his chair. "Go home and burn those medical books—every single one of them."
"Burn them! Why, doctor, them's the very things that made me know I was sick. I should n't 'a' come ter you at all if it had n't been fur them."
"Exactly!" agreed the doctor, rubbing his hands together. "That's just what I thought. You were well before, were n't you?"
"Why, yes,—that is, I did n't know I was sick," corrected Jason.
"Hm-m; well, you won't know it now if you'll go home and burn those books. If you don't burn them you'll have every disease there is in them, and some one of them will be the death of you. As it is now, you're a well man, but I would n't trust one organ of your anatomy within a rod of those books an hour longer!"
He said more—much more; and that his words were not without effect was shown no later than that same evening when Jason burst into the kitchen at home.
"Hitty, Hitty, thar ain't six, thar ain't one, thar ain't nothin' that ails me," he cried jubilantly, still under the sway of the joy that had been his when the great doctor had told him there was yet one chance for his life. "Thar ain't a single thing!"
"Well, now, ain't that nice?" murmured Hitty, as she drew up the chairs.
"Come, Jason, supper's ready."
"An' Hitty, I'm goin' ter burn 'em up—them books of Hemenway's," continued Jason confidentially. "They ain't very good readin', after all, an' like enough they're kind of out of date, bein' so old. I guess I'll go fetch 'em now," he added as he left the room. "Why, Hitty, they're—gone!" he cried a minute later from the doorway.
"Gone? Books?" repeated Mehitable innocently. "Oh, yes, I remember now.
I must 'a' burned 'em this mornin'. Ye see, they cluttered up so. Come,
Jason, set down."