"Luke," she said, "do please run for the doctor."

"What's the matter?" asked my father.

"Susan," gasped my mother, "she's lying on the kitchen floor breathing
in the strangest fashion and quite unable to speak."

"I'll go for Washburn," said my father; "if I am quick I shall catch
him at the dispensary."

Five minutes later my father came back panting, followed by the
doctor. This was a big, black-bearded man; added to which he had the
knack of looking bigger than even he really was. He came down the
kitchen stairs two at a time, shaking the whole house. He brushed my
mother aside, and bent over the unconscious Susan, who was on her back
with her mouth wide open. Then he rose and looked at my father and
mother, who were watching him with troubled faces; and then he opened
his mouth, and there came from it a roar of laughter, the like of
which sound I had never heard.

The next moment he had seized a pail half full of water and had flung
it over the woman. She opened her eyes and sat up.

"Feeling better?" said the doctor, with the pail still in his hand;
"have another dose?"

Susan began to gather herself together with the evident intention of
expressing her feelings; but before she could find the first word, he
had pushed the three of us outside and slammed the door behind us.