And I, not wantin' to hurt her, fell in with the idee, and I see she wanted to go.
Now, if I hadn't trusted him jest as firm as I would any old deacon or pastor I wouldn't hearn to the idee, but I did trust him implicitly, and so I agreed to it.
And when he brung her back, she with a pretty light in her eyes and a soft color on the white cheeks, he sez:
"As it happens I have got to go up the mountain in the morning a few miles, and I will take Miss Dora out again if you think best."
And I sez, "Josiah can take her."
And he sez, "No, Uncle Josiah is busy; don't bother him."
"Well," sez I, kinder laughin' in the inside of my sleeves, "doctors are most always busy."
And he sez again, "I have got to go up there, and mountain air is jest what she needs."
Well, in a few days he said she needed lake air. And when I begun to plan how to git her to it he said it happened jest so that he had got to go down on the lake shore a few milds off, and he could take her jest as well as not, and she seemed glad to go—glad enough; and every single day she seemed to feel better and look better. Early hours to bed and to rise, fresh, pure air, wholesome, nutritious food, and easy, loose clothin' had all done their healin' work on her. Why, I had let out her pretty muslin dresses most half a finger under the arms, and she dast as well die as to girt herself in agin, my eye wuz that keen on her and yet lovin'. And I went to Jonesville myself and picked her out a pair of common sense shoes, but pretty ones, russet color; why, good land! she didn't wear but number three, any-
