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."