students
at Cambridge; John Calvin and Martin Luther, who had been among the
first of those brave Kentucky volunteers to march to the defense of the
territory of Indiana against the depredations of Tecumseh and the
Prophet, were now with General Harrison at Vincennes.

During the day, Betsy, who had left her three little children in the
charge of the negress Marthy, shared with Aunt Dilsey the care of the
sick man; and during the night watch Abner was his most constant
attendant. Although Gilcrest was too delirious to recognize any one, it
soon came to pass that no one else could influence him as could his
once despised son-in-law; for poor Mrs. Gilcrest could not bear the
sight of her husband's sufferings, and was hardly ever allowed to enter
the room.

All that the medical erudition of the time prescribed was done for the
patient. He was bled twice a week, and smothered in blankets; he was
poulticed and plastered, blistered and fomented; he was dosed with
concoctions of fever-wort, boneset, burdock, pokeberry, mullein root,
and other medicaments bitter of taste and vile of smell; and kept hot,
weak, and miserable generally. Our forbears are represented to this
generation as a brave, vigorous and healthy race; and no wonder, for
disease in that heroic age was simply a question of the "survival of
the fittest;" and the stringent remedies prescribed under the old
dispensation were well calculated to eliminate all but the strongest
members of the race.

August and September passed, and still the master of Oaklands lay
helpless, while fever raged in his gaunt frame with unrelenting
violence. One thing was constantly denied him, fresh, cold water;
although he pleaded with such pitiful agony that his nurses wept when
they refused him. In delirium he talked of the old spring at his
far-away childhood home--of the babbling music of the water as it
sparkled over its pebbly bed and trickled down the rocky hillside--and
again and again he pleaded for one draught of its reviving freshness.
"Water! water!" was the burden of his plaint from morn till night, and
from night till morn; and when too weak to speak, his hollow, bloodshot
eyes still begged for water.

Finally he was given up to die. "He can not last through the night,"
was the verdict of the two physicians to the mourning ones around the
bedside. His fainting wife was carried from the room; and his daughter,
not able to endure the sight of his dying agonies, allowed h