Farmer Bluff's dog Blazer

by Florence E. Burch

The doctor shook his head again.

"You mustn't think," said he, "that three days can cure disease brought on by the habits of a lifetime. I will do my best for you; but you have killed yourself."

Hal met Dick that day.

"It's a pity," said he. "Dr. Winthrop says that Farmer Bluff can't possibly get well. The gout has reached his stomach. It's all through drinking too much beer."

Then he went on to the cottage to talk to Farmer Bluff in his own simple, sympathetic way. "I'm very sorry," he told him gently, "especially as it's your own fault. That makes so much worse of it."

"In this world and the next," put in Farmer Bluff gloomily. "But it's too late to talk about that now."

"Too late!—Why?" asked Hal.

But although Farmer Bluff knew pretty well his own reasons for saying so, he did not answer the boy's question.

So Hal went on: "I don't at all think it's too late. 'Never too late to mend' is a good saying; but 'Never too late to repent' seems to me a better. Because, you see, if what Dr. Winthrop says is right, your gout won't let you mend; but Jesus said that everybody who repented in their heart, would be accepted and forgiven."

"I've tried singing to him," Maggie told Hal, when he came downstairs again. "I know a lot of hymns; and he likes it too."