"I have bathed the foot," said Bubble, "and it'll be all right to-morrow. Old Mr. Colt wanted to give me three different kinds of liniment to rub on it, but hot water is all it needs. He's a queer old fellow, old Mr. Colt!" he added meditatively. "Seems to live on medicine chiefly."
"What do you mean?" asked the girls.
"Why," said Bubble, "he came in to supper—I hadn't seen him before—with a big bottle under his arm, and a box of pills in his hand. He came shuffling in in his stocking-feet, and when he saw me he gave a kind of groan. 'Who's that?' says he. 'It's a boy come over from Bywood,' says Mrs. Abner, as they call her. 'He's goin' to stop here over night, Father. Ain't you glad to see him?—Father likes young folks real well!' she says to me. The old gentleman gave a groan, and sat down, nursing his big bottle as if it were a baby. 'D'ye ever have the dyspepsy?' he asked, looking at me. 'No, sir!' said I. 'Never had anything that I know of, 'cept the measles.' He groaned again, and poured something out of the bottle into a tumbler. 'You look kinder 'pindlin',' says he, shaking his head. 'I think likely you've got it on ye 'thout knowin' it. It's sub-tile, dyspepsy is,—dreadful sub-tile.'"
"What did he mean?—subtle?" asked Hilda, laughing.
"I suppose so!" replied the boy. "And then he took his medicine, groaning all the time and making the worst faces you ever saw. 'I reckon you'd better take a swallow o' this, my son!' he said. 'It's a pre-ventitative, as well 's a cure.'"
"Bubble," cried his sister, "you are making this up. Confess, you monkey!"
"I'm not!" said Bubble, laughing. "It's true, every word of it. I couldn't make up old Mr. Colt! 'It's a pre-ventitative!' he says, and reaches out his hand for my tumbler. Then Abner, the young man, spoke up, and told him he guessed I'd be better without it, and that 't wasn't meant for young people, and so on. 'What is it, Mr. Colt?' I asked, seeing that he looked real—I mean very much—disappointed. He brightened up at once. 'It's Vino's Vegetable Vivifier!' he said. 'It's the greatest thing out for dyspepsy. How many bottles have I took, Leory?' 'I believe this is the tenth, Father!' said Mrs. Abner. 'And I don't see as 't 's done you a mite o' good!' she said to herself, but so 't I could hear. 'Thar!' says the old man, nodding at me, as proud as could be, 'd' ye hear that? Ten bottles I've took, at a dollar a bottle. Ah! it's great stuff. Ugh!' and he groaned and took a great piece of mince-pie on his plate. 'Oh, Father!' says the young woman, 'do you think you ought to eat mince-pie, after as sick as you was yesterday?' He was just as mad as hops! 'Ef I'm to be grutched vittles,' he says, 'I guess it's time for me to be quittin'. I've eat mince-pie seventy year, man an' boy, and I guess I ain't goin' to leave off now. I kin go over to Joel's, if so be folks begrutches me my vittles here.' 'Oh, come, Father!' says Abner; 'you know Leory didn't mean nothing like that. Ef you've got to have the pie, why, you've got to have it, that's all.' The old man groaned, and pegged away at the pie like a good one. 'Ah!' he said, 'I sha'n't be here long, anyway. Nobody needn't be afraid o' my eatin' up their substance. Hand me them doughnuts, Abner. Nothin' seems to have any taste to it, somehow.'"
"Did he eat nothing but pie and doughnuts?" asked Hilda. "I should be afraid he would die to-night."
"Oh," said Bubble, "you wouldn't believe me if I told you all the things he ate. Pickles and hot biscuit and cheese—and groaning all the time, and saying nobody knowed what dyspepsy was till they'd had it. Then, when he'd finished, he opened the pill-box, which had been close beside his plate all the time, and took three great fat black pills. 'Have any trouble with yer liver?' says he, turning to me again; 'there is nothin' like these pills for yer liver. You take two of these, and you'll feel 'em all over ye in an hour's time,—all over ye!' I thought 't was about time for me to go, so I said I must attend to the horse's foot, and went out to the stable. It was then that he brought me the three kinds of liniment, and wanted me to rub them all on, 'so 's if one didn't take holt, another would.'"
"What a dreadful old ghoul!" cried Hildegarde, indignantly. "I don't think it's safe for you to stay there, Bubble. I know he will poison you in some way."