id countenance, and exclaim, "The Worms are at work again! Poor
child, you are all eaten up by worms! You must take a dose of
Vermifuge."

This diagnosis once made, excuses, prayers, sudden assumptions of
liveliness, or pseudo exhibitions of ravenous appetite, availed nothing.
Gram would rise from the table, walk calmly to the medicine cupboard and
fetch out that awful Bottle and Spoon.

With a species of fascination, the Worm-suspect would then watch her
turn out the hideous, sticky liquid, till the tablespoon was full and
crowning over the brim of it all around. Why, even to this day, as the
picture rises in memory, I feel my stomach roll and see the hard, wild
grin on the face of Halstead as he watched the ordeal approach me.

"Now shut your eyes and open your mouth," Gram would say, and, when the
awful dose was in, "Swallow! Swallow hard!" Then up would come her soft,
warm hand under my chin, tilting my head back like a chicken's. There
was no escape.

On one occasion Halstead bolted, while the Vermifuge was being poured
out, and escaped to the barn. But he had to go without his breakfast
that forenoon, and when he appeared at the dinner table, Bottle, Spoon
and Gram with a severe countenance were waiting for him.

Theodora used to try to take hers without murmuring, although convinced
that it was a mere whim, stipulating only that she might go out in the
kitchen to swallow it. But with Wealthy, who was younger, the ingestion
of Vermifuge was usually preceded by an orgy of tears and supplications.
Addison, who was older and generally well, long smiled in a superior way
at the grimaces of us who were more "Wormy." But shortly after our first
Thanksgiving Day at the farm, he, too, fell ill and failed to come down
to breakfast. On his absence being noted, Gram went up-stairs to inquire
into his plight; and it was with a sense of exultation rather than
proper pity, I fear, that Halse and I saw the old lady come down
presently and get the Vermifuge Bottle. We heard Addison expostulating
and arguing in rebuttal for some minutes, but he lost the case. Wealthy,
who had stolen up-stairs on tip-toe, to view the denouement, informed us
later, in great glee, that Addison had attempted by a sudden movement to
eject the nauseous mouthful, but that Gram had clapped one hand under
his chin and pinched his nose with the thumb and finger of the other,
till he was compelled to swallow, in order to breathe.

About that time it wa