By the time Dr. Jedd arrived Lammy was in a heavy sleep, from which he roused at the physician’s firm touch on his pulse, and began to talk wildly.
At first he seemed to think that Dr. Jedd was Old Lucky, for he cried, “I gave you the silver dollar and I made the bullets, but when I went to shoot them, they turned into polliwogs and went downstream.” Then raising himself, he shook his pillow violently, saying, “You were a bad man to tell me lies. How could I shoot the shadow of a Christmas tree on a dark night? Cause when it’s dark there are’nt any shadows.”
Next he seemed to imagine that he was tramping over the hills with the surveyors, and he had an argument with himself, as to whether feet made rods or rods feet, and then mumbled something about a + b that they could not understand for they did not know that one of his new friends had started him in Algebra.
“He is tired out,” said Dr. Jedd, presently, “and in his mind more than his body. The professor over at the camp told me that he had a great head for mathematics, and was always asking questions and working out sums and things on every scrap of paper he came across, and that when paper gave out he’d smooth a place in the dirt and scratch away on that with a nail. Said that it was a pity that he couldn’t go to the Institute at Northboro and be fitted for the School of Mines in New York. Told me if he ever did, he could put him in the way of free tuition at least.”
“The pewter tea-pot! Take Bird out of the pewter tea-pot; she’s stuck in the spout, and when you chop it off, it will kill her!” shrieked Lammy, jumping out of bed.
Dr. Jedd gave him some quieting medicine, and he soon sank back among the pillows, with a burning red spot of fever on each cheek.
“Is it typhoid?” asked Mrs. Lane, her face white and drawn; “Janey died of that.”
“It is a fever, but I cannot be quite sure of exactly which one,” said the doctor, opening a little case he carried and taking out a fine needlelike instrument and a bottle of alcohol. “If I wait to know until it develops, we shall be losing time; if I prick his finger and send a drop of blood to Dr. Devlin in Northboro, who makes a study of such things, he will look at it through his microscope and tell me in the morning exactly where we stand.” So after washing a spot clean with alcohol he took the little red drop that tells so much to the really wise physician and prevents all the mistakes of guess-work, and then began to prepare some medicines and write his directions for the night.
“Is there any one you would like me to send up to stay with you, Mrs. Lane?” the doctor asked as he prepared to leave. “This may be a tedious illness, and it won’t do for you to wear yourself out in the beginning.”
“Byme-by, perhaps,” Mrs. Lane replied “but not jest now while he talks so wild. You know, doctor, how the best of folks will repeat and spy. Joshua ain’t overbusy, and he’ll help me out.”