Jasper County Democrat, Volume 17, Number 69, Rensselaer, Jasper County, 5 December 1914 — A FIERY DOSE [ARTICLE]

A FIERY DOSE

By JOHN Y. LARNED

When Billy Olcott was Invited to spend a week with his friend Tom Roberts he was delighted. He bad met Tom’s sister, Fanny, and had fallen be fore a pair of liquid brown eyes, a pair of coral lips and a pair of dimples, one in each cheek. Since that meeting he had thought of her by day and dreamed of her by night He received the invitation on Monday for the following Friday. Then followed the four longest days of Billy’s life. He counted the hours till -at last the day of his departure arrived, and an hour before dinner he was under the same roof with tbe girl who had enthralled him. Now for the wooing. Tom’s -brother, Jim, was ill in bed and did not make his appearance. On the second night of Billy’s visit he went to bed at 11 o’clock and was soon asleep. He was awakened by hearing some one moving about the room. Whoever it was tried to light a match. It sputtered a moment and went out, but not before Billy saw by Its light the face of Fanny Roberts. "There,” she grumbled, “the last match gone, and I don’t know where to find another! However, I know exactly where I left your medicine—in the closet on the third shelf from the bottom in the right hand corner. I don’t believe in giving medicine in the dark, but I’ll risk It this time.” Billy heard her groping and fumbling, and finally she came to his bedside, put a glass half full of some liquid to his lips and poured it down his throat Then she left him with a good night. Olcott was one of the most modest sensitive young men in the world, and he considered young girls to be even more sensitive than himself. If Fanny knew that she had come into his room at midnight by mistake to give him a dose of medicine she would never get over the shock. This Is the reason why he had not made her mistake known to her and why be had permitted her to pour down his throat a medicine he did not need. He lay congratulating himself on the delicacy with which be had handled the matter and how, if she came to know of her mistake, it would set him up in her opinion. Girls were sometimes caught by trifles, and he wouldn't wonder if this bit of sacrifice would cause her to fall in love with him. Then he felt something down in his stomach where the dose had gone that felt as if a red hot poker had been applied to his Internals. He started. A dose in tbe dark had been given him, and might it not have been the wrong medicine? Another application of the hot poker. He sat up in bed, his hair stood on end and a cold sweat broke out all over him. Fanny had been looking for a bottle in the closet in her brother’s room, not Billy’s. She certainly had given him the wrong dose. Great heavens! Could she have poisoned him? A third application of the poker. This time it seemed to Billy that some one had gripped him with redhot pincers. He sprang out of bed, ran to Tom Roberts’ door and hammered on it Tom came out in his pajamas and asked what was the matter. “Bring me an emetic as soon as you can!” cried Billy. “I’m afraid I’ve swallowed poison." Tom ran to his sister’s door, called her up and told her to go downstairs and bring up some mustard and warm water. She tried to find out who had been poisoned, but Tom told her to “go on and be quick about it” When she brought up the emetic she found Billy’s door open, the room lighted and her brother bending over the groaning Invalid.

Then for the first time she understood the cause of the trouble. She flew to the closet, opened the door, took out a vial and read the label. Then she put the vial back again and gave Billy a look, but said nothing. “I took a dose of that,” said Billy between groans. “Will it kill me?” “No,” replied Fanny. “What is it?” “A preparation of ginger and red pepper.” “Is that all?” “Yes; it won’t hurt you." “That’s past praying for. It’s eating my yitals.” ’“Thank heaven it’s no worse." “It’s bad enough as It Is.” "How came you to take it?” queried Tom. This was a poser. Billy took advantage of another Internal firebrand to invent a story. When the paroxysm had passed he said; “Just before I came up here I felt sick and went to a doctor. He said I had anthropomegaphone and gave me some medicine for it I forgot to take It before going to bed; got up and hunted for it in the dark. I must have got Into the wrong place.” By this time the emetic took effect and Fanny took advantage of the fact to withdraw. While Billy was retching he thought he heard n te-rbee in the next room. "Confound - that girl!” he said mentally—he was doing something else physically—“catch me trying to shield her again.’ Next time she tries to give me a dose I’ll turn it down her own throat” But the next morning he felt better and was doing a lot of spooning—not with medicine either.