When he came the next morning, he found Dannie no better. The fever was still high, and the congestion was still spreading in the affected lung. The next day both lungs were involved. Then Dr. Chubbuck realized that the case was getting critical. He gave to his task all the energy, all the skill, all the best thought and judgment, at his command. He was fond of the boy; he had been fond of the boy’s father before him. He had known Abner Pickett intimately from childhood, and, while he respected him for his many good and sterling qualities, he did not hesitate to condemn his faults to his face. And, strange as it may seem, Dr. Chubbuck was the only man in the world, under whose condemnation Abner Pickett would sit quietly with no show of resentment. The old man believed in him, trusted him, and relied on him in everything. There was only one topic that he would not permit him to mention, and that was the estrangement between him and his son. Notwithstanding the doctor’s skilful treatment, and Aunt Martha’s tender nursing, Dannie grew steadily worse. He did not suffer great pain, but he was growing constantly weaker, and there was no abatement of the fever. He often wandered in his mind. He thought he was again battling with the storm. He would cry out that it was impossible for him to go farther through those dreadful drifts; that he was sinking to his death in the deep snow; and he would beg piteously for some one to come and rescue him. “There are no drifts, Dannie,” Aunt Martha would say to him. “You are not out in the snow-storm now; you are at home in bed; and I am sitting here beside you; and Gran’pap is standing there by the foot-board. You are dreaming, that is all.” But by the time Dannie would turn his glassy eyes toward the foot of the bed, Gran’pap would not be there. He would be in the next room wiping from his face the tears that Dannie must not see. Hour after hour he would pace up and down the carpeted floor, or sit silent by the fire, waiting, in an agony of dread, for what the next moment might bring forth. While Dannie’s life was hanging in the balance he could neither work nor eat nor sleep. It distressed him greatly to hear the sick child’s constant call for water to alleviate his thirst. They were obliged to give it to him in small quantities, inasmuch as his stomach, yielding to the general weakness, was participating actively in the disease. “Can’t he have somethin’, Doc?” exclaimed the old man, impatiently, “somethin’ that he can just drink down--somethin’ that’ll satisfy him if it ain’t but for five minutes? I can’t stan’ it to hear him beggin’ that way all the time for water!” The doctor explained why liquids taken on the stomach in large quantities, in Dannie’s case, might prove disastrous, and then mentioned a certain carbonated water, put up in siphon bottles, which he thought might be taken more freely and with good effect.