“Doc—”
“Is—”
“Don’t be ’larmed, Madam,” ses he, “ther ain’t no danger!”
Sich a change as cum over the crowd! The room seemed to git lighter in a instant. It was like the sunlight breakin’ through a midnight sky.
Mary cried like a child, and hugged her baby to her bussum, and kissed it a dozen times, and talked baby talk to it; and the galls begun puttin’ the room to rights, so it would be fit for the docter to see it.
“Is you sure ther ain’t no danger, docter?” ses old Miss Stallins.
“None in the least, Madam,” ses he. “Ther’s nothing in the world the matter of the child, only it had a little touch of the hives, what made it laugh and roll its eyes about in its sleep. In your fright, you burnt its mouth with yer hot teas, till it cried a little, and then you’ve doctered it with hot baths, ingin-juice, and parrygorrick, till you’ve stupified it a little. That’s all, Madam. By mornin’ it’ll be well as ever it was, if you don’t give it no more big doses of parrygorrick.”
“I sed so,” ses old Miss Stallins. “I told the child ther was no use in takin’ on so ’bout the baby. But young people is so easy skeered, you know, docter.”
“Yes, and old grandmothers too, sumtimes,” ses he, laughin’.
The baby soon quit moanin’ so bad, and Mary laid it in the bed and kiver’d it over with kisses.