Rich quieted their fears, stopped the bleeding, cleansed, bound up, and dressed the wound. It was several days before the doctor returned. The first time he rode out to visit his patients, he encountered on the road an old acquaintance, but by no means a favorite of his, Miss Nelly Buckminster. Miss Nelly was a spinster, lived by herself in a small house left to her by her parents, and gained a livelihood by taking in spinning, weaving, and plain sewing; occasionally kept house for anybody who could endure her tongue, for she was an inveterate talker, and held very decided opinions upon all subjects. In other respects she was an excellent housekeeper, neat, industrious, economical, and an excellent cook.
Miss Nelly was very religious, exceedingly so; but her piety was of the vociferous, rather than of the introspective cast. She was the recipient of many presents. Some gave her because they thought her a very good though rather peculiar woman, some because they were afraid of her tongue, others because they knew she would tell of it from Dan to Beersheba. We think it must have been the reasons assigned that influenced so many persons to make presents to Nelly, because there was not the least satisfaction to be derived from the act itself, as Nelly, in expressing her gratitude and sense of obligation—which she never failed to do—always ignored second causes, and paid her respects to the Most High.
This might have been—undoubtedly was—good theology, but it was of the nutmeg-grater variety, and altogether corrosive in both quality and operation; for when persons bestow gifts, influenced by the purest motives, some manifestation of gratitude is pleasant, and generally expected; but no person ever received any from Nelly; her gratitude was ever directed over the heads of the instrumentalities to the efficient cause, which was not merely sound doctrine and conservative, but did away at once with all troublesome sense of obligation or return in kind.
Squire Dresser once sent her by the hand of his son a bushel of Indian meal. Henry knocked at the door, and gave her the bag of meal, saying,—
"Miss Buckminster, here is a bushel of flour my father sent you, and he'll call some time when he's going by to mill, and get the bag."
"No thanks to Squire Dresser; thanks to the Lord; 'twas the Lord sent it, and not the squire."
Henry had made the interview as brief as possible, in order to escape an exhortation on the subject of personal piety, that Nelly was in the habit of administering to him whenever he came to her house of an errand, and which altogether failed of producing any good impression, because he did not like her, and by reason of the snappish way in which she flung it at him.
Finding he had in his haste made a mistake, he went back and said,—