"Mis' Mayberry! Oh, Mis' Mayberry!" came a high, quavering old voice from around the corner of the house, and Squire Tutt hove in sight. He was panting for breath and trembling with rage as he ascended the steps and stood in the kitchen door.
Mother hastened to bring him a chair into which he wheezingly subsided.
"Why, Squire," she questioned anxiously, "have anything happened? Is Mis' Tutt tooken with lumbago again?"
"No!" exploded the Squire, "she's well—always is! I'm the only really sick folks in Providence, though I don't git no respect for it. In pain all the time and no respect—no respect!"
"Now, Squire, everybody in Providence have got sympathy for your tisic, and just yesterday Mis' Pike was a-asking me—"
"Tisic! I ain't talking about tisic now! It's this pain in my stomick that that young limb of satan of your'n insulted me about not a hour ago. Me a-writhing in tormint with nothing less'n a cancer—insulted me!" As the Squire projected his remark toward Mother Mayberry he bent double and peered expectantly up into her sympathetic face.
"Why, what did he do, Squire?" demanded Mother, with a glance at Miss Wingate, who still stood at the biscuit block cutting out her dough. She regarded the old man with alarmed wonder.
"Told me to drink two cups of hot water and lie down a hour—me in tormint!" The Squire fairly spit his complaint into the air.
"Dearie me, Tom had oughter known better than that about one of your spells," said Mother. "Why, I've been a-curing them for years for you myself with nothing more'n a little drop of spirits, red pepper and mint. He had oughter told you to take that instead of hot water. I'm sorry—"
"Oughter told me to take spirits—told me to TAKE spirits! Don't you know, Mis' Mayberry, a man with a sanctified wife can't TAKE no spirits; they must be GAVE to him by somebody not a member of the family. Me a-suffering tormints—two cups of hot water—tormints, tormints!"