FIRST SPIRT OF BLOOD.
Well, there wasn’t nothing else to do but go ahead. The doctor opened up his killing tools and tried to keep Abe from seeing them; but Abe he just come right over and peeked at ’em, handled ’em, and called ’em “splendid”—and so they were, barrin’ havin’ them used on your own flesh and blood and bones.
Then they got some cloths and a basin, and one thing and another, and set Abe right down in a chair. (No such thing as chloroform in those days, you’ll remember.) And Squire Caton was to hold an instrument that spread the eyelid wide open, while Ephe was to hold Abe’s head steady. First touch of the lancet, and first spirt of blood, and what do you think? That ornery Ephe wilted, and fell flat on the floor behind the chair!
“Squire,” said Brainard, “step around and hold his head.”
“I can hold my own head,” says Abe, as steady as you please. But Squire Caton, he straddled over Ephe and held his head between his arms, and the two handles of the eye-spreader with his hands.
It was all over in half a minute, and then Abe he leaned forward, and shook the blood off his eyelashes, and looked straight out of that eye for the first time since he was born. And the first words he said were:
“Thank the Lord! She’s mine!”
About that time Ephe he crawled outdoors, sick as a dog; and Abe spoke up, says he:
“Now for the other eye, doctor.”