in thunder did you know--" he began.

But the doctor interrupted him.

"Never mind that. You have them, have n't you?"

"Why, yes; I bought 'em at an auction. I bought 'em last--"

"Spring--eh?" supplied the doctor.

Jason's mouth fell open.

"Never mind," laughed the doctor again, his hand upraised. "Now to
business!" And his face grew suddenly grave. "You're in a bad way, my
friend."

"B-bad way?" stammered Jason. "It--it is n't six that ails me?"

It was all fear this time in Jason's voice; some way the doctor's face
had carried conviction.

"No; you are threatened with more than six."

"Wha-at?" Jason almost sprang from his seat. "But, doctor, they
ain't--dangerous!"

"But they are, very!"

"All of them? Why, doctor, how--how many are thar?"

The doctor shook his head.

"I could not count them," he replied, not meeting Jason's eyes.

"Oh-h!" gasped Jason, and shook in his shoes. There was a long silence.
"An' will I--die?" he almost whispered.

"We all must--sometime," returned the doctor, slowly, as if weighing his
words; "but you will die long before your time--unless you do one thing."

"I'll do it, doctor, I'll do it--if I have ter mortgage the farm,"
chattered Jason frenziedly. "I'll do anythin'--anythin'; only tell me
what it is."

"I will tell you," declared the doctor briskly, with a sudden change of
manner, whisking about in his chair. "Go home and burn those medical
books--every single one of them."

"Burn them! Why, doctor, them's the very things that made me know I was
sick. I should n't 'a' come ter you at all if it had n't been fur them."

"Exactly!" agreed the doctor, rubbing his hands together. "That's just
what I thought. You were well before, were n't you?"

"Why, yes,--that is, I did n't know I was sick," corrected Jason.

"Hm-m; well, you won't know it now if you'll go home and burn those
books. If you don't burn them you'll have every disease there is in
them, and some one of them will be the death of you. As it is now,
you're a well man, but I would n't trust one organ of your anatomy within
a rod of those books an hour longer!"

He said more--much more; and that his words were not without effect was
shown no later than that same evening when Jason burst into the kitchen
at home.

"Hitty, Hitty, thar ain't six, thar ain't one, thar ain't nothin' that
ails me," he cried jubilantly, still under the sway of the joy that had
been his when the great do