and give' to you and me,
We'll lack no joy, ner appetite,
ner all we'd ort to eat,
And sleep like childern ever' night--
as puore and ca'm and sweet."

LII

Doc _has_ bin 'cused o' _offishness_
and lack o' talkin' free
And extry friendly; but he says,
"I'm _'feard_ o' talk," says he,--
"I've got," he says, "a natchurl turn
fer talkin' fit to kill.--
The best and hardest thing to learn
is trick o' keepin' still."

LIII

Doc _kin_ smoke, and I s'pose he _might_
drink licker--jes fer fun.
He says, "_You_ smoke, _you_ drink all right;
but _I_ don't--neether one"--
Says, "I _like_ whiskey--'good old rye'--
but like it in its place,
Like that-air warter in your eye,
er nose there on your face."

LIV

Doc's bound to have his joke! The day
he got that off on me
I jes had sold a load o' hay
at "Scofield's Livery,"
And tolled Doc in the shed they kep'
the hears't in, where I'd hid
The stuff 'at got me "out o' step,"
as Sifers said it did.

LV

Doc hain't, to say, no "_rollin' stone_,"
and yit he hain't no hand
Fer '_cumulatin_'.--_Home_'s his own,
and scrap o' farmin'-land--
Enough to keep him out the way
when folks is tuk down sick
The suddentest--'most any day
they want him 'special quick.

[Illustration]

LVI

And yit Doc loves his practice; ner
don't, wilful, want to slight
No call--no matter who--how fur
away--er day er night.--
He loves his work--he loves his friends--
June, Winter, Fall, and Spring:
His _lovin'_--facts is--never ends;
he loves jes _ever_'thing....

LVII

'Cept--_keepin' books_. He never sets
down no accounts.--He hates,
The worst of all, collectin' debts--
the worst, the more he waits.--
I've knowed him, when at last he _had_
to dun a man, to end
By makin' him a loan--and mad
he hadn't more to lend.

LVIII

When Pence's Drug Store ust to be
in full blast, they wuz some
Doc's patients got things frekantly
there, charged to him, i gum!--
Doc run a bill there, don't you know,
and allus when he squared,
He never questioned nothin',--so
he had his feelin's spared.

LIX

Now sich as that, I ho