e thet ef I recover from the first spell o' suffocation, I always
come through. But I 'ain't never took one yet thet I didn't in a manner
prepare to die."

"Then I wouldn't take it, Enoch. Don't do it." The doctor cleared his
throat again, but this time he had no trouble to keep the corners of his
mouth down. His sympathy robbed him for the time of the humor in the
situation. "No, I wouldn't do it--doggone ef I would."

The deacon looked into the palm of his hand and sighed. "Oh yas, I
reckon I better take it," he said, mildly. "Ef I don't stand in need of
it now, maybe the good Lord'll sto'e it up in my system, some way,
'g'inst a future attackt."

"Well"--the doctor reached for his whip--"well, _I_ wouldn't do
it--_steer or no steer_!"

"Oh yas, I reckon you would, doctor, ef you had a wife ez worrited over
a wash-tub ez what mine is. An' I had a extry shirt in wash this week,
too. One little pill ain't much when you take in how she's been
tantalized."

The doctor laughed outright.

"Tell you what to do, Enoch. Fling it away and don't let on. She don't
question you, does she?"

"No, she 'ain't never to say questioned me, but--Well, I tried that
once-t. Sampled a bitter white capsule she gave me, put it down for
quinine, an' flung it away. Then I chirped up an' said I felt a heap
better--and that wasn't no lie--which I suppose was on account o' the
relief to my mind, which it always did seem to me capsules was jest
constructed to lodge in a person's air-passages. Jest lookin' at a box
of 'em'll make me low-sperited. Well, I taken notice thet she'd look at
me keen now an' ag'in, an' then look up at the clock, an' treckly I see
her fill the gou'd dipper an' go to her medicine-cabinet, an' then she
come to me an' she says, says she, 'Open yore mouth!' An' of co'se I
opened it. You see that first capsule, ez well ez the one she had jest
administered, was mostly morphine, which she had give me to ward off a
'tackt o' the neuraligy she see approachin', and here I had been tryin'
to live up to the requi'ements of quinine, an' wrastlin' severe with a
sleepy spell, which, ef I'd only knew it, would o' saved me. Of co'se,
after the second dose-t, which I swallered, I jest let nature take its
co'se, an' treckly I commenced to doze off, an' seemed like I was a
feather-bed an' wife had hung me on the fence to sun, an' I remember how
she seemed to be a-whuppin' of me, but it didn't hurt. Of co'se nothin'
couldn't hurt me an