“Why, bless her old soul, Enoch, you know thet I think the world an’ all o’ Grandma Gregg! She’s the salt o’ the earth—an’ rock salt at that. She’s saved too many o’ my patients by her good nursin’, in spite o’ my poor doctorin’, for me not to appreciate her. But that don’t reconcile me to the way she doses you for her worries.”
“It took me a long time to see that myself, doctor. But I’ve reasoned it out this a-way: I s’pose when she feels her temper a-risin’ she’s ‘feered thet she might be so took with her troubles thet she’d neglect my health, an’ so she wards off any attackt thet might be comin’ on. I taken notice that time her strawberry preserves all soured on her hands, an’ she painted my face with iodine, a man did die o’ the erysipelas down here at Battle Creek, an’ likely as not she’d heerd of it. Sir? No, I didn’t mention it at the time for fear she’d think best to lay on another coat, an’ I felt sort o’ disfiggured with it. Wife ain’t a scoldin’ woman, I’m thankful for that. An’ some o’ the peppermints an’ things she keeps to dole out to me when she’s fretted with little things—maybe her yeast’ll refuse to rise, or a thunder-storm’ll kill a settin’ of eggs—why, they’re so disguised thet ’cep’n thet I know they’re medicine—”
“Well, Kitty, I reckon we better be a-goin’.” The doctor tapped his horse. “Be shore to give my love to Grandma, Enoch. An’ ef you’re bound to take that pill—of co’se I can’t no mo’n speculate about it at this distance, but I’d advise you to keep clear o’ sours an’ acids for a day or so. Don’t think, because your teeth are all adjustable, thet none o’ yore other functions ain’t open to salvation. Good-night, Enoch.”
“Oh, she always looks after that, doctor. She’s mighty attentive, come to withholdin’ harmful temptations. Good-by, doctor. It’s did me good to open my mind to you a little.
“Yas,” he added, looking steadily into his palm as the buggy rolled away—”yas, it’s did me good to talk to him; but I ain’t no more reconciled to you, you barefaced, high-foreheaded, little rolly-poly, you. Funny how a pill thet ain’t got a feature on earth can look me out o’ countenance the way it can, and frustrate my speech. Talk about whited sepulchures, an’ ravenin’ wolves! I don’t know how come I to let on thet I was feeling’ puny to-night, nohow. I might’ve knew—with all them clo’es cedaubled over; though I can’t, ez the doctor says, see how me a-takin’ a pill is goin’ to help matters; but of co’se I wouldn’t let on to him, an’ he a bachelor.”
He stopped talking and felt his wrist.
“Maybe my pulse is obstropulous, an’ ought to be sedated down. Reckon I’ll haf to kill that steer—or sell him—one, though I swo’e I wouldn’t. But of co’se I swo’e that in a temper, an’ temp’rate vows ain’t never made ‘cep’in’ to be repented of.”
Several times during the last few minutes, while the deacon spoke, there had come to him across the garden from the kitchen the unmistakable odor of fried chicken.
He had foreseen that there would be a good supper to-night, and that the tiny globule within his palm would constitute for him a prohibition concerning it.