“Well, I’m glad to hear you say that; and now don’t you go for to eat your words later, Abel Crew. Our Ann, my wife, helped to give them there two pills to the children; and I’m not a-going to let her get into trouble over it. You’ve confessed to the pills, and I’m a witness.”
“My pills did not kill the children, Dovey,” said Abel, in a pleasant tone, resting his lame foot upon an opposite chair.
“Not kill ’em?”
“No, that they did not. I’ve not made pills all these years to poison children at last.”
“But what done it if the pills didn’t?”
“How can I say? ’Twasn’t my pills.”
“Dr. Duffham says it was the pills. And he——”
“Dr. Duffham says it was?”
“Reed telled me that the doctor asked outright, all in a flurry, what his wife had gave the babies, and she said she had gave ’em nothing but them there two pills of Abel Crew’s. Duffham said the pills must have had poison in ’em, and he asked for the box; and Hester Reed, she give him the box, and he sealed it up afore their eyes with his own seal.”
Abel nodded. He knew that any suspected medicine must in such a case be sealed up.