was more so. He began, also, to
distrust his own powers of diagnosis, and to study all the patent
medicine advertisements he could lay his hands on. He was half
comforted, half appalled, to read them. Far from being able to pick out
his own particular malady from among the lot, he was forced to admit that
as near as he could make out he had one or more symptoms of each and
every disease that was mentioned.

"Now, Hitty, I'll leave it to you," he submitted plaintively. "Here's
'Dread of impending evil.' Now I've got that, sure; ye know I'm always
thinkin' somethin' dreadful's goin' ter happen. 'Sparks before the
eyes.' There! I had them only jest ter-day. I was sweepin' out the
barn, an' I see 'em hoppin' up an' down in a streak of sunshine that come
through a crack. 'Variable appetite.' Now, Hitty, don't ye remember?
Yesterday I wanted pie awful, an' I ate a whole one; well, this mornin'
seems as if I never wanted ter see an apple pie again. Now, if that
ain't 'variable,' I don't know what is. 'Inquietude.'"

"Humph! You've got that all right," cut in Mehitable.

"'Weakness.' I hain't got a mite o' strength, Hitty," he complained.
"An' thar 's dizziness, too,--I can't chase the calf three times round
the barnyard but what my head is jest swimmin'! An' Hitty,"--his voice
grew impressive,--"Hitty, I've got ev'ry one of them six symptoms, ev'ry
blamed one of 'em, an' I picked 'em out of six diff'rent
advertisements--six! Now, Hitty, which disease is it I've got? That's
what I want ter know--which?"

His wife could not tell him; in fact, no one could tell him, and in sheer
desperation Jason answered all six of the advertisements, determined to
find out for a certainty what ailed him.

In due course the answers came. Jason read one, then another, then
another, until the contents of the entire six had been mastered. Then he
raised his head and gazed straight into his wife's eyes.

"Hitty," he gasped. "I've got 'em all! An' I've got ter take the whole
six medicines ter cure me!"

Even Mehitable was stirred then. For one long minute she was silent,
then she squared her shoulders, and placed her hands on her hips.

"Jason Hartsorn," she began determinedly, "this thing has gone jest as
fur as I'm goin' to stand it. Do you bundle yourself off ter Boston an'
hunt up the biggest doctor you can find. If he says somethin' ails ye, I
'll believe him, an' nuss ye ter the best of my ability; but as fur