Uncle Joe was very sick the next day. Aunt Betsy said it served him right. She hoped he'd "puke his innards out." Alfred was busy carrying the afflicted man water by the gourdful from the spring. Uncle Joe would not permit him to bring it in a pail: he wanted it cold and fresh. "Dip her deep, son," he would say as he emptied the gourd and sent the boy for more. The sufferer grew worse and finally Aunt Betsy's womanly sympathy impelled her to go to the sick man. She began by saying: "I oughtn't to lift a hand to help you. Any man that will pour licker down his stomach until he throws it up is a hog and nothing else." Catching a whiff of that which had come up, she turned up her nose and contemptuously continued: "I don't see how any one can put that stuff down them." She held her nose and turned her head in disgust. The sick man raised his head and feebly answered: "Well, it don't taste that way going down. Go away and let me die in peace. I deserve to die alone; I don't want any of ye to pity me. Just bury me is all I ask." [Illustration: She Asked Him If He Were Not Afraid to Die] The woman's sympathy entirely overcome her anger as the man well knew it would. She begged to be permitted to do something for him. He was obdurate. He was "not worthy of being saved"; all he desired was to "die alone and be forgotten." She asked him if he were not afraid to die. "No, no" he answered, "I'm not afraid to die but I'm ashamed to." Feeling his heart was softening, she begged to do something to relieve him, a cold towel for his head or hot tea for his stomach. No, nothing could do him any good, so he declared. "If you don't have something done for you, you might die." "Let me die, but if I ever get over this one, it's the last for Joe. I hope every still house in Fayette County will burn down afore night and all the whiskey ever made destroyed." The wife exulted greatly at these words and renewed her entreaties to do something for him. "Well, if you insist on doing something for me", and he hesitated, "but I know it will do no good--go down to the kitchen, fill a big coffee cup half full of bilin' hot water, dissolve a lump of loaf sugar in it, drop in a little lump of butter 'bout as big as a robin's egg. Then reach up in the old cupboard in the hall, top shelf and way back in the corner, you'll find a big, black bottle. Pour quite a lot out of this bottle into the cup, fill it up. Grate a little nutmeg into it and fetch it up yar." Then holding his hands to his head as if suffering great pain, dropping his voice to a faint whisper as if he were about to collapse, he said: "Bring it up here and if I don't want to take it you jes' make me."