Coffin, in a tearful voice.
"Why, I went up to the bedside, (ef you may call it so,) an' said, sez
I, 'Why, Lor' sakes, Mr. Widdrinton,'----an' then I hild up, for I
ketchcd a sight of his face, an' I thought he wuz gone for sartin. He
wuz as cold an' as white as that 'ere snow, an' it warn't till I'd felt
of his heart an' foun' that it beat a little that I thought of sich a
thing as his comin' to. But as soon as I found he'd got a breath o'
life in him, I didn't waste much time till I'd got him wropped up in a
hot blanket with a jug o' water to his feet, an' some hot tea inside on
him. Then he come to a little, an' said he hadn't eat nor drank for two
days an' nights."
"Oh, Keziah!" sobbed Mrs. Coffin; while her husband, plunging his hands
deep into his breeches-pockets, and elevating his eyebrows till they
were lost in his shaggy hair, exclaimed,--
"Good Je-hosaphat!" which was the nearest approach to an oath in which
he ever indulged.
"An' so," pursued the widow, after enjoying for a moment the
consternation of her audience,--"an' so I thought I had better come an'
see ef he couldn't be took in here; not that I wouldn't do for him, an'
be glad to, fur as I could, but he a'n't in a state to be left alone,
an' you know my trade takes me away consid'able from home,--an' which,
if I don't foller it, why, when I git a little older, I shall have to
come here myself, an' be a burden on your hands an' the town's.
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