that's splendid!" she cried "You see it isn't bad, at
all."

"No'm," he said meekly. "Not when you get used to it."

"And aren't you ashamed, making all that fuss?" she went on happily.

"Yes'm, I guess so."

"And don't you feel better? Don't you see how much good it's doing you
already?"

"Yes'm, I guess so."

Upon a holiday morning, several weeks later, Penrod and Sam Williams
revived a pastime that they called "drug store", setting up display
counters, selling chemical, cosmetic and other compounds to imaginary
customers, filling prescriptions and variously conducting themselves in
a pharmaceutical manner. They were in the midst of affairs when Penrod
interrupted his partner and himself with a cry of recollection.

"_I_ know!" he shouted. "I got some mighty good ole stuff we want. You
wait!" And, dashing to the house, he disappeared.

Returning immediately, Penrod placed upon the principal counter of the
"drug store" a large bottle. It was a quart bottle, in fact; and it
contained what appeared to be a section of grassy swamp immersed in a
cloudy brown liquor.

"There!" Penrod exclaimed. "How's that for some good ole medicine?"

"It's good ole stuff," Sam said approvingly. "Where'd you get it? Whose
is it, Penrod?"

"It WAS mine," said Penrod. "Up to about serreval days ago, it was. They
quit givin' it to me. I had to take two bottles and a half of it."

"What did you haf to take it for?"

"I got nervous, or sumpthing," said Penrod.

"You all well again now?"

"I guess so. Uncle Passloe and cousin Ronald came to visit, and I expect
she got too busy to think about it, or sumpthing. Anyway, she quit
makin' me take it, and said I was lots better. She's forgot all about it
by this time."

Sam was looking at the bottle with great interest.

"What's all that stuff in there, Penrod?" he asked. "What's all that
stuff in there looks like grass?"

"It IS grass," said Penrod.

"How'd it get there?"

"I stuck it in there," the candid boy replied. "First they had some
horrable ole stuff in there like to killed me. But after they got three
doses down me, I took the bottle out in the yard and cleaned her all
out and pulled a lot o' good ole grass and stuffed her pretty full and
poured in a lot o' good ole hydrant water on top of it. Then, when they
got the next bottle, I did the same way, and--"

"It don't look like water," Sam objected.

Penrod laughed a superior laugh.

"Oh, that's nothin'," he sa