kept up the treatment, gittin' up in the night
to feed that stuff to him; but the poor little boy got wuss and wuss,
and one mornin' he says to his mother, says he: 'Mother, I guess I'm
goin' to die, and I'd ruther do that than take any more of that
medicine, and I wish you'd call Johnny and we'll trade names back agen,
and if he don't want to come and do it, you kin tell him he kin keep the
old minkskin I gave him to boot, on account of his name havin' a Wesley
in it.' 'Trade names,' says his mother, 'what do you mean by that?' And
then he told her what he and Johnny had done. 'And did you ever tell
anybody about this?' says she. 'Nobody but Dr. Barnes,' says he. 'After
that I got sick and forgot it.' When my sister heard that, an idee
struck into her like you put a fork into an apple dumplin'. Traded
names, and told the doctor! She'd all along thought it strange that the
boy that seemed wuss should be turned out, and the other one put under
treatment; but it wasn't fur her to set up her opinion agen that of a
man like Dr. Barnes. Down she went, in about seventeen jumps, to where
Eli Timmins, the hired man, was ploughin' in the corn. 'Take that horse
out of that,' she hollers, 'and you may kill him if you have to, but git
Dr. Barnes here before my little boy dies.' When the doctor come he
heard the story, and looked at the sick youngster, and then says he: 'If
he'd kept his minkskin, and not hankered after a Wesley to his name,
he'd a had a better time of it. Stop the treatment, and he'll be all
right.' Which she did; and he was. Now it seems to me that this is a
good deal like your case. You've had to take a lot of medicine that
didn't belong to you, and I guess it's made you feel pretty bad; but
I've told my gals to stop the treatment, and you'll be all right in the
mornin'. Good-night. Your candlestick is on the kitchen table."

For two days longer I remained in this neighborhood, wandering alone
over the hills, and up the mountain-sides, and by the brooks, which
tumbled and gurgled through the lonely forest. Each evening I brought
home a goodly supply of trout, but never a great one like the noble
fellow for which I angled in the meadow stream.

On the morning of my departure I stood on the porch with old Peter
waiting for the arrival of the mail driver, who was to take me to the
nearest railroad town.

"I don't want to say nothin'," remarked the old man, "that would keep
them fellers with the jinted poles from