She made an application to the keeper of the County Poor to admit her husband's father to the department of the incurably insane, which was adjacent to the Poor House.
"He's crazy," she said, "just as crazy as can be. We can't do anything with him. He needs a strong man to look after him. Ben's never at home, and he has everything to look after any way, and can't be broken of his rest, and the old man talks and cries half the night. I'm not able to take care of him—I seem to be breaking down myself, with all I have to endure, and besides it isn't safe to have him in the house. I think he's getting worse all the time. He'd be better off, and we all would, if he was in the care of the county."
The authorities looked into the matter, and found that at least a portion of the lady's statements were true. It was quite evident that the old man would be better off in the County House than he was in the home of his only son. So he was taken away, and Abby had her freedom at last.
"We are going to take you where you will have medical treatment and care; it is your daughter's request," they told him in answer to his trembling queries.
"Oh! yes, yes—Abby thinks I'll get my sight back, I suppose, if I'm doctored up. Well, maybe so, but I'm pooty old—pooty old for the doctors to patch up. But Abby has a powerful mind to plan things—a powerful mind. 'Liz'beth never would a' thought of sending me away—'Liz'beth was so easy like. Abby ought to a' been a man, she had. She'd a' flung things."
So he babbled on as they carried him to the Poor House.
It was November, and the holidays were close at hand. Thanksgiving, Christmas, New Year. Abby meant to enjoy them, and invited all her relatives to a time of general feasting and merrymaking.
"I feel as if a great nightmare were lifted off my heart and brain, now the old man has gone," she said. "He will be so much better off, and get so much more skillful treatment, you know, in a place like that. They are very kind in that institution, and so clean and nice, and he will have plenty of company to keep him from being lonesome. We have been all through it, during the last year, or else we never should have sent him there. It is really an excellent home for him."