Then Abe threw off the covers in a hurry and sat up. "Sam'l Darby?" he asked, the strength coming back into his voice. "A man! Nary a woman ner a doctor! Yes—yes, show him up!"
Angy nodded in response to Mrs. Homan's glance of inquiry; for had not the doctor told her that it would not hasten the end to humor the patient in any reasonable whim? And she also consented to withdraw when Abe informed her that he wished to be left alone with his visitor, as it was so long since he had been face to face with a man "an' no petticoat a-hangin' 'round the corner."
"Naow, be keerful, Cap'n Darby," the little mother-wife cautioned at the door, "be very keerful. Don't stay tew long an' don't rile him up, fer he's dretful excited, Abe is."
XI
MENTAL TREATMENT
Little Samuel Darby paused at the foot of the bed and stared at Abe without saying a word, while Abe fixed his dim, distressed eyes on his visitor with a dumb appeal for assistance. Samuel looked a very different man from the old bachelor who used to come a-wooing every six months at the Home. Either marriage had brought him a new growth of hair, or else Blossy had selected a new wig for him—a modest, close, iron-gray which fitted his poll to perfection. Marriage or Blossy had also overcome in Samuel that tendency to hang his head "to starb'd"; and now he lifted his bright eyes with the manner of one who would say:
"See! I'm king of myself and my household! Behold what one woman has done for me!" And in turn Abe's unstrung vigor and feeble dependence cried out as loudly: "I haven't a leg left to stand on. Behold what too much woman has done for me!"
"Ain't yew a-goin' ter shake hands?" inquired Abraham at last, wondering at the long silence and the incomprehensible stare, his fears accentuated by this seeming indication of a supreme and hopeless pity. "Ain't yew a-goin' ter shake hands? Er be yew afeard of ketchin' it, tew?"
For a moment longer Samuel continued to stare, then of a sudden he roared, "Git up!"
"Huh?" queried Abe, not believing his own ears. "Why, Cap'n Sam'l, don't yew know that I'm a doomed man? I got the 'narvous hysterics.'"