The minister answered that he was as well as usual, or thought he was.
“No, no, you ain't nuther,” declared Didama. “You look's if you was comin' down with a spell of somethin'. I ain't the only one that's noticed it. Why, Thankful Payne says to me only yesterday, 'Didama,' says she, 'the minister's got somethin' on his mind and it's wearin' of him out.' You ain't got nothin' on your mind, have you, Mr. Ellery?”
“I guess not, Mrs. Rogers. It's a beautiful afternoon, isn't it?
“There! I knew you wa'n't well. A beautiful afternoon, and it hotter'n furyation and gettin' ready to rain at that! Don't tell me! 'Tain't your mind, Mr. Ellery, it's your blood that's gettin' thin. My husband had a spell just like it a year or two afore he died, and the doctor said he needed rest and a change. Said he'd ought to go away somewheres by himself. I put my foot down on THAT in a hurry. 'The idea!' I says. 'You, a sick man, goin' off all alone by yourself to die of lonesomeness. If you go, I go with you.' So him and me went up to Boston and it rained the whole week we was there, and we set in a little box of a hotel room with a window that looked out at a brick wall, and set and set and set, and that's all. I kept talkin' to him to cheer him up, but he never cheered. I'd talk to him for an hour steady and when I'd stop and ask a question he'd only groan and say yes, when he meant no. Finally, I got disgusted, after I'd asked him somethin' four or five times and he'd never answered, and I told him, I believed he was gettin' deef. 'Lordy!' he says, 'I wish I was!' Well, that was enough for ME. Says I, 'If your mind's goin' to give out we'd better be home.' So home we come. And that's all the good change and rest done HIM. Hey? What did you say, Mr. Ellery?”
“Er—oh, nothing, nothing, Mrs. Rogers.”
“Yes. So home we come and I'd had enough of doctors to last. I figgered out that his blood was thinnin' and I knew what was good for that. My great Aunt Hepsy, that lived over to East Wellmouth, she was a great hand for herbs and such and she'd give me a receipt for thickenin' the blood that was somethin' wonderful. It had more kind of healin' herbs in it than you could shake a stick at. I cooked a kittleful and got him to take a dose four times a day. He made more fuss than a young one about takin' it. Said it tasted like the Evil One, and such profane talk, and that it stuck to his mouth so's he couldn't relish his vittles; but I never let up a mite. He had to take it and it done him a world of good. Now I've got that receipt yet, Mr. Ellery, and I'll make some of that medicine for you. I'll fetch it down to-morrow. Yes, yes, I will. I'm agoin' to, so you needn't say no. And perhaps I'll have heard somethin' about Cap'n Nat and Grace by that time.”
She brought the medicine, and the minister promptly, on her departure, handed it over to Keziah, who disposed of it just as promptly.
“What did I do with it?” repeated the housekeeper. “Well, I'll tell you. I was kind of curious to see what 'twas like, so I took a teaspoonful. I did intend to pour the rest of it out in the henyard, but after that taste I had too much regard for the hens. So I carried it way down to the pond and threw it in, jug and all. B-r-r-r! Of all the messes that—I used to wonder what made Josh Rogers go moonin' round makin' his lips go as if he was crazy. I thought he was talkin' to himself, but now I know better, he was TASTIN'. B-r-r-r!”
Keziah was the life of the gloomy parsonage. Without her the minister would have broken down. Time and time again he was tempted to give up, in spite of his promise, and leave Trumet, but her pluck and courage made him ashamed of himself and he stayed to fight it out. She watched him and tended him and “babied” him as if he was a spoiled child, pretending to laugh at herself for doing it and at him for permitting it. She cooked the dishes he liked best, she mended his clothes, she acted as a buffer between him and callers who came at inopportune times. She was cheerful always when he was about, and no one would have surmised that she had a sorrow in the world. But Ellery knew and she knew he knew, so the affection and mutual esteem between the two deepened. He called her “Aunt Keziah” at her request and she continued to call him “John.” This was in private, of course; in public he was “Mr. Ellery” and she “Mrs. Coffin.”
In his walks about town he saw nothing of Grace. She and Mrs. Poundberry and Captain Nat were still at the old home and no one save themselves knew what their plans might be. Yet, oddly enough, Ellery was the first outsider to learn these plans and that from Nat himself.