"Good morning, ladies," he said, removing the new cap which Seth had recently purchased for him in Eastboro. "Mr. Stover tells me you wish to be shown the lights."
The plump woman answered. "Yes," she said, briskly, "we do. Are you a new keeper? Where's Mr. Atkins?"
"Mr. Atkins, I regret to say," began Brown, "is ill. He--"
Stover, standing at his elbow, interrupted nervously.
"Mr. Brown here'll show us around," he said quickly. "Seth said he would."
"I shall be happy," concurred that young gentleman. "You must excuse me if I seem rather worried. Mr. Atkins, my chief--I believe you know him, Mrs. Stover--has been taken suddenly ill, and is, apparently, suffering much pain. The attack was very sudden, and I--"
"Sick?" The plump woman seemed actually to prick up her ears, like a sleepy cat at the sound of the dinner bell. "Is Seth sick? And you all alone with him here? Can't I do anything to help?"
"All he wants is to be left alone," put in her husband anxiously.
"He said so himself."
"Do you know what's the matter? Have you got any medicine for him?"
Mrs. Stover was already climbing out of the buggy.
"No," replied Brown. "I haven't. That is, I haven't given him any yet."
The slim woman, Mrs. Hains of Boston, now broke into the conversation.
"Good thing!" she snapped. "Most medicine's nothing but opium and alcohol. Fill the poor creature full of drugs and--"
"I s'pose you'd set and preach New Thought at him!" snapped Mrs.
Stover. "As if a body could be cured by hot air! I believe I'll go right in and see him. Don't you s'pose I could help, Mr. Brown?"
Mr. Brown seemed pleased, but reluctant. "It's awfully good of you," he said. "I couldn't think of troubling you when you've come so far on a pleasure excursion. But I am at my wit s end."
"Don't say another word!" Mrs. Stover's bulky figure was already on the way to the door of the house. "I'm only too glad to do what I can. And, if I do say it, that shouldn't, I'm always real handy in a sick room. 'Bijah, be quiet; I don't care if we ARE on a picnic; no human bein' shall suffer while I set around and do nothin'."
Mrs. Hains was at her cousin's heels.
"You'll worry him to death," she declared. "You'll tell him how sick he is, and that he's goin' to die, and such stuff. What he needs is cheerful conversation and mental uplift. It's too bad!
Well, you sha'n't have your own way with him, anyhow. Mr. Brown, where is he?"
"You two goin' to march right into his BEDROOM?" screamed the irate Abijah. The women answered not. They were already in the kitchen.
Brown hastened after them.
"It's all right, ladies," he said. "Right this way, please."
He led the way to the chamber of the sick man. Mr. Atkins turned on his bed of pain, caught a glimpse of the visitors, and sat up.
"What in time?" he roared.
"Seth," said Brown, benignly, "this is Mrs. Stover of Eastboro. I think you know her. And Mrs. Hains of Boston. These ladies have heard of your sickness, and, having had experience in such cases, have kindly offered to stay with you and help in any way they can.
Mrs. Stover, I will leave him in your hands. Please call me if I can be of any assistance."
Without waiting for further comment from the patient, whose face was a picture, he hastened to the kitchen, choking as he went. Mr.
Stover met him at the outer door.
"Now you've done it!" wailed the little man. "NOW you've done it!
Didn't I tell you? Oh, this'll be a hell of a picnic!"
He stalked away, righteous indignation overcoming him. Brown sat down in a rocking chair and shook with emotion. From the direction of the sick room came the sounds of three voices, each trying to outscream the other. The substitute assistant listened to this for a while, and, as he did so, a new thought struck him. He remembered a story he had read in a magazine years before. He crossed to the pantry, found an empty bottle, rinsed it at the sink, stepped again to the pantry, and, entering it, closed the door behind him. There he busied himself with the molasses jug, the soft-soap bucket, the oil can, the pepper shaker, and a few other utensils and their contents. Footsteps in the kitchen caused him to hurriedly reenter that apartment. Mrs. Stover was standing by the range, her face red.
"Oh, there you are, Mr. Brown!" she exclaimed. "I wondered where you'd gone to."
"How is he?" inquired Brown, the keenest anxiety in his utterance.
"H'm! he'd do well enough if he had the right treatment. I cal'late he's better now, even as 'tis; but, when a person has to lay and hear over and over again that what ails 'em is nothin' but imagination, it ain't to be wondered at that they get mad. What he needs is some sort of soothin' medicine, and I only wish 'twan't so fur over to home. I've got just what he needs there."
"I was thinking--" began Brown.
"What was you thinkin'?"
"I was wondering if some of my 'Stomach Balm' wouldn't help him.
It's an old family receipt, handed down from the Indians, I believe.
I always have a bottle with me and . . . Still, I wouldn't prescribe, not knowing the disease."
Mrs. Stover's eyes sparkled. Patent medicines were her hobby.
"Hum!" she said. "'Stomach Balm' sounds good. And he says his trouble is principally stomach. Some of them Indian medicines are mighty powerful. Have you--did you say you had a bottle with you, Mr. Brown?"
The young man went again to the pantry and returned with the bottle he had so recently found there. Now, however, it was two thirds full of a black sticky mixture. Mrs. Stover removed the cork and took an investigating sniff.
"It smells powerful," she said, hopefully.
"It is. Would you like to taste it?" handing her a tablespoon. He watched as she swallowed a spoonful.
"Ugh! oh!" she gasped; even her long suffering palate rebelled at THAT taste. "It--I should think that OUGHT to help him."
"I should think so. It may be the very thing he needs. At any rate, it can't hurt him. It's quite harmless."
Mrs. Stover's face was still twisted, under the influence of the "Balm"; but her mind was made up.