“ ‘Now, Lizy,’ I says, ‘I wa’n’t there ten minutes if I was that, an’ I ben buyin’ you a bunnit.’
“ ‘You—ben—buyin’—me—a—bunnit?’ she says, stifnin’ up stiffer ’n a stake.
“ ‘Yes,’ I says, ‘I heard you say somethin’ ’bout a spring bunnit, an’ I thought, seein’ how economicle you was, that I’d buy you a nicer one ’n mebbe you’d feel like yourself. I thought it would please ye,’ I says, tryin’ to rub her the right way.
“ ‘Let me see it,’ she says, in a voice dryer ’n a lime-burner’s hat, pressin’ her lips together an’ reachin’ out fer the box. Wa’al, sir, she snapped the string with a jerk an’ sent the cover skimmin’ across the room, an’ then, as she hauled the parcel out of the box, she got up onto her feet. Then she tore the paper off on’t an’ looked at it a minute, an’ then took it ’tween her thumb an’ finger, like you hold up a dead rat by the tail, an’ held it off at the end of her reach, an’ looked it all over, with her face gettin’ even redder if it could. Fin’ly she says, in a voice ’tween a whisper ’n a choke:
“ ‘What’d you pay fer the thing?’
“ ‘Fifteen dollars,’ I says.
“ ‘Fifteen dollars?’ she says.
“ ‘Yes,’ I says, ‘don’t ye like it?’ Wa’al,” said David, “she never said a word. She drawed in her arm an’ took holt of the bunnit with her left hand, an’ fust she pulled off one thing an’ dropped it on the floor, fur off as she c’d reach, an’ then another, an’ then another, an’ then, by gum! she went at it with both hands jest as fast as she could work ’em, an’ in less time ’n I’m tellin’ it to ye she picked the thing cleaner ’n any chicken you ever see, an’ when she got down to the carkis she squeezed it up between her two hands, give it a wring an’ a twist like it was a wet dish towel, an’ flung it slap in my face. Then she made a half turn, throwin’ back her head an’ grabbin’ into her hair, an’ give the awfullest screechin’ laugh—one screech after another that you c’d ’a’ heard a mile—an’ then throwed herself face down on the bed, screamin’ an’ kickin’. Wa’al, sir, if I wa’n’t at my wits’ end, you c’n have my watch an’ chain.
“She wouldn’t let me touch her no way, but, as luck had it, it was one o’ the times when we had a hired girl, an’ hearin’ the noise she come gallopin’ up the stairs. She wa’n’t a young girl, an’ she had a face humbly ’nough to keep her awake nights, but she had some sense, an’—‘You’d bether run fer the docther,’ she says, when she see the state my wife was in. You better believe I done the heat of my life,” said David, “an’ more luck, the doctor was home an’ jest finishin’ his tea. His house an’ office wa’n’t but two three blocks off, an’ in about a few minutes me an’ him an’ his bag was leggin’ it fer my house, though I noticed he didn’t seem to be ’n as much of a twitter ’s I was. He ast me more or less questions, an’ jest as we got to the house he says:
“ ‘Has your wife had any thin’ to ’larm or shock her this evenin’?’
“ ‘Nothin’ ’t I know on,’ I says, ‘ ’cept I bought her a new bunnit that didn’t seem to come quite up to her idees.’ At that,” remarked Mr. Harum, “he give me a funny look, an’ we went in an’ upstairs.
“The hired girl,” he proceeded, “had got her quieted down some, but when we went in she looked up, an’ seein’ me, set up another screech, an’ he told me to go downstairs an’ he’d come down putty soon, an’ after a while he did.
“ ‘Wa’al?’ I says.
“ ‘She’s quiet fer the present,’ he says, takin’ a pad o’ paper out o’ his pocket, an’ writin’ on it.
“ ‘Do you know Mis’ Jones, your next-door neighbor?’ he says. I allowed ’t I had a speakin’ acquaintance with her.
“ ‘Wa’al,’ he says, ‘fust, you step in an’ tell her I’m here an’ want to see her, and ast her if she won’t come right along; an’ then you go down to my office an’ have these things sent up; an’ then,’ he says, ‘you go down town an’ send this’—handin’ me a note that he’d wrote an’ put in an envelope—‘up to the hospital—better send it up with a hack, or, better yet, go yourself,’ he says, ‘an’ hurry. You can’t be no use here,’ he says. ‘I’ll stay, but I want a nurse here in an hour, an’ less if possible.’ I was putty well scared,” said David, “by all that, an’ I says, ‘Lord,’ I says, ‘is she as bad off as that? What is it ails her?’
“ ‘Don’t you know?’ says the doc, givin’ me a queer look.
“ ‘No,’ I says, ‘she hain’t ben fust rate fer a spell back, but I couldn’t git nothin’ out of her what was the matter, an’ don’t know what pertic’ler thing ails her now, unless it’s that dum’d bunnit,’ I says.
“At that the doctor laughed a little, kind as if he couldn’t help it.
“ ‘I don’t think that was hully to blame,’ he says; ‘may have hurried matters up a little—somethin’ that was liable to happen any time in the next two months.’
“ ‘You don’t mean it?’ I says.
“ ‘Yes,’ he says. ‘Now you git out as fast as you can. Wait a minute,’ he says. ‘How old is your wife?’
“ ‘F’m what she told me ’fore we was married,’ I says, ‘she’s thirty-one.’
“ ‘Oh!’ he says, raisin’ his eyebrows. ‘All right; hurry up, now,’
“I dusted around putty lively, an’ inside of an hour was back with the nurse, an ’jest after we got inside the door—” David paused thoughtfully for a moment and then, lowering
