"It's 'Brother Abe' this an' 'Brother Abe' that! as ef I had thirty wives a-pesterin' me instid of one. I can't kill a fly but it's 'Brother Abe, lemme bury him fer yew.' Do yer all think I be a baby?" demanded the old gentleman with glaring eye. "I guess I'm able ter do somethin' fer myself once in a while. I hain't so old as some folks might think," he continued with superb inconsistence. "I be a mere child compared with that air plagued Nancy Smith." It took very little to exhaust Angy's ability for this style of repartee, and she would rejoin with tender but mistaken efforts to soothe and comfort him: "Thar, thar, Father! don't git excited neow. Seems ter me ye 're a leetle bit feverish. Ef only yew 'd take this here tansy tea." Abraham would give one exasperated glance at the tin cup and mutter into the depths of his beard: "Tansy tea an' old women! Old women an' tansy tea! Tansy tea be durned!" Abe failed perceptibly during the summer, grew feebler as the autumn winds blew in, and by November he took to his bed and the physician of the Home, a little whiffet of a pompous idiot, was called to attend him. The doctor, determined at the start to make a severe case of the old man's affliction in order that he might have the greater glory in the end, be it good or bad, looked very grave over Abraham's tongue and pulse, prescribed medicine for every half-hour, and laid especial stress upon the necessity of keeping the patient in bed. "Humbug!" growled the secretly terrified invalid, and in an excess of bravado took his black silk necktie from where it hung on the bedpost and tied it in a bow-knot around the collar of his pink-striped nightshirt, so that he would be in proper shape to receive any of the sisters. Then he lay very still, his eyes closed, as they came tiptoeing in and out. Their tongues were on gentle tiptoe too, although not so gentle but that he could hear them advising: one, a "good, stiff mustard plaster"; one, an "onion poultice"; another, a "Spanish blister"; while Aunt Nancy stopped short of nothing less than "old-fashioned bleeding." Abe lay very still and wondered if they meant to kill him. He was probably going to die anyhow, so why torment him. Only when he was dead, he hoped that they would think more kindly of him. And so surrounded yet alone, the old man fought his secret terror until mercifully he went to sleep. When he awoke there were the sisters again; and day after day they spent their combined efforts in keeping him on his back and forcing him to take his medicine, the only appreciable good resulting therefrom being the fact that with this tax upon their devotion the old ladies came once more to regard Abe as the most precious possession of the Home.