CHAPTER XLVII.
NOW I LAY ME—
Time may drag slowly, but it never drags backward. So the summer wore on, Richling following his physician’s directions; keeping to his work only—out of public excitements and all overstrain; and to every day, as he bade it good-by, his eager heart, lightened each time by that much, said, “When you come around again, next year, Mary and I will meet you hand in hand.” This was his excitement, and he seemed to flourish on it.
But day by day, week by week, the excitements of the times rose. Dr. Sevier was deeply stirred, and ever on the alert, looking out upon every quarter of the political sky, listening to the rising thunder, watching the gathering storm. There could hardly have been any one more completely engrossed by it. If there was, it was his book-keeper. It wasn’t so much the Constitution that enlisted Narcisse’s concern; nor yet the Union, which seemed to him safe enough; much less did the desire to see the enforcement of the laws consume him. Nor was it altogether the “’oman candles” and the “’ockets”; but the rhetoric.
Ah, the “’eto’ic”! He bathed, he paddled, dove, splashed, in a surf of it.
“Doctah,”—shaking his finely turned shoulders into his coat and lifting his hat toward his head,—“I had the honah, and at the same time the pleasu’, to yeh you make a shawt speech lass evening. I was p’oud to yeh yo’ bunning eloquence, Doctah,—if you’ll allow. Yesseh. Eve’ybody said ’twas the moze bilious effo’t of the o’-casion.”
Dr. Sevier actually looked up and smiled, and thanked the happy young man for the compliment.
“Yesseh,” continued his admirer, “I nevveh flatteh. I give me’-it where the me’-it lies. Well, seh, we juz make the welkin ’ing faw joy when you finally stop’ at the en’. Pehchance you heard my voice among that sea of head’? But I doubt—in ’such a vas’ up’ising—so many imposing pageant’, in fact,—and those ’ocket’ exploding in the staw-y heaven’, as they say. I think I like that exp’ession I saw on the noozpapeh, wheh it says: ‘Long biffo the appointed owwa, thousan’ of flashing tawches and tas’eful t’anspa’encies with divuz devices whose blazing effulgence turn’ day into night.’ Thass a ve’y talented style, in fact. Well, au ’evoi’, Doctah. I’m going ad the—an’ thass anotheh thing I like—’tis faw the ladies to ’ing bells that way on the balconies. Because Mr. Bell and Eve’et is name bell, and so is the bells name’ juz the same way, and so they ’ing the bells to signify. I had to elucidate that to my hant. Well, au ’evoi’, Doctah.”
The Doctor raised his eyes from his letter-writing. The young man had turned, and was actually going out without another word. What perversity moved the physician no one will ever know; but he sternly called:—