Mr. Sam hadn't come back by the morning of the sixth day, but he wired
his wife the day before that Mr. Dick was on the way. But we met every
train with a sleigh, and he didn't come. I was uneasy, knowing Mr. Dick,
and Mrs. Sam was worried, too.

By that time everybody was waiting and watching, and on the early train
on the sixth day came the lawyer, a Mr. Stitt. Mr. Thoburn was going
around with a sort of greasy smile, and if I could have poisoned him
safely I'd have done it.

It had been snowing hard for a day or so, and at eleven o'clock that day
I saw Miss Cobb and Mrs. Biggs coming down the path to the spring-house,
Mrs. Biggs with her crocheting-bag hanging to the handle of her
umbrella. I opened the door, but they wouldn't come in.

"We won't track up your clean floor, Minnie," Mrs. Biggs said--she was a
little woman, almost fifty, who'd gone through life convinced she'd only
lived so long by the care she took of herself--"but I thought I'd better
come and speak to you. Please don't irritate Mr. Biggs to-day. He's been
reading that article of Upton Sinclair's about fasting, and hasn't had a
bite to eat since noon yesterday."

I noticed then that she looked pale. She was a nervous creature,
although she could drink more spring water than any human being I ever
saw, except one man, and he was a German.

Well, I promised to be careful. I've seen them fast before, and when a
fat man starts to live on his own fat, like a bear, he gets about the
same disposition.