To heal the blows of sound."


Indeed, I did not discover that Melindy could talk that day; she was
very silent, very incommunicative. I inspected the fowls, and tried to
look wise, but I perceived a strangled laugh twisting Melindy's face
when I innocently inquired if she found catnip of much benefit to the
little chickens; a natural question enough, for the yard was full of
it, and I had seen Hannah give it to the baby. (Hannah is my sister.)
I could only see two little turkeys,--both on the floor of the
second-story parlor in the chicken-house, both flat on their backs and
gasping. Melindy did not know what ailed them; so I picked them up,
slung them in my pocket-handkerchief, and took them home for Peggy to
manipulate. I heard Melindy chuckle as I walked off, swinging them;
and to be sure, when I brought the creatures in to Peggy, one of them
kicked and lay still, and the other gasped worse than ever.

"What can we do?" asked Peggy, in the most plaintive voice, as the
feeble "week! week!" of the little turkey was gasped out, more feebly
every time.

"Give it some whiskey-punch!" growled Peter, whose strict temperance
principles were shocked by the remedies prescribed for Peggy's ague.

"So I would," said Kate, demurely.

Now if Peggy had one trait more striking than another, it was her
perfect, simple faith in what people said; irony was a mystery to her;
lying, a myth,--something on a par with murder. She thought Kate meant
so; and reaching out for the pretty wicker-flask that contained her