CHAPTER IV.


I felt turrible. What wuz I to do to do right? How wuz I to handle this
enormous prescription, St. Louis Exposition, and give it in proper doses
to the beloved patient? I knowed the size of the mind I had to deal
with, I knowed the size of the medicine I wuz told to deal out to that
mind.

Could it stand the strain? Could that small citadel stand a assault of
such magnitude without crumplin' and crumblin' right down? Dast I
venter? And then agin dast I disobey the imperative advice of Doctor
Bombus? So I wuz tossted to and fro like the waves of the sea.

But one thing I wuz determined on, I wouldn't start alone with him in
the state he wuz in, for if he should lose his mind in that immense
place how could I find it with no one to help me? It would be worse than
lookin' for a cambric needle in a hay-mow.

I knew how the shafts of calumny and envy might be aimed at me by his
relations, so I would take along one on his side to share my
responsibility, so if he did lose his mind and couldn't find it agin,
they couldn't find fault with me and say I hadn't done my best. So I
proposed that his niece, Blandina Teeter, should go with us, she is well
off and a willin' creeter.

[Illustration]