There wouldn’t any of the campers round ’em do anything for ’em; for he had, accordin’ to his own wishes, got right into a perfect nest of Prohibitionists.  The Deacon wuz perfectly devoted to the temperance cause himself—­wouldn’t drink a drop to save his life—­and dretful bitter and onforgivin’ to them that drinked.

But it happened that bottle of alcohol for their lamp got broke right onto the Deacon’s clothes.  His vest, and pantaloons, and coat wuz jest soaked with it; so’s when he went after help they called him an old soaker, and said if he’d been sober the tent wouldn’t have broke loose.  They scorfed at him fearful, and wouldn’t do a thing to help him.

He told ’em he wuz a strict tetoteler, and hadn’t drinked a drop for over forty years.

And they said, “Git out, you wretched old sot!  You smell like a saloon!”

And another said, “Don’t tell any of your lies to me, when jest one whiff of your breath is enough to make a man reel.”

It cut the Deacon up dretful to be accused of drinkin’ and lyin’.  But they wouldn’t one of ’em help a mite, and it kep him boned right down a-waitin’ on her.

And they, jest as she got a little better, there come on a drizzlin’ rain, and it soaked right down through the tent, and run in under it, so they wuz a-drippin’, both on ’em.

But the Deacon took it worse than she did, for he elevated her onto their trunks, made a bed up on top of ’em for her as well as he could.

But he got soaked through and through, and it brung on rumatiz, and he couldn’t move for over nine days.  And the doctors said that his case wuz critical.

Of course she couldn’t leave him, and havin’ to cook over a alcohol lamp, it kep her to home every minit, even if he could be left.

So she said they got discouraged, and their bills run up so high for doctors, and medicines, and plasters, etc., that they calculated to break up tent and go and board for a few days, git a look at the Fair, and then go home.

And sez she, “I spoze you have been here every day.”

“Yes,” sez I; “we would have a nice warm breakfast and supper at our boardin’ place, and a good comfortable bed to sleep in, and we would buy our dinner here on the Fair ground, and we have kep real well.”

She looked enviously at me out of her pale and haggard face.

Sez she, “We have both ruined our stomachs a-livin’ on crackers and cheese.  I shall never see a well day agin!  And we both have got rumatiz for life, a-layin’ round out-doors.  It is dangerous at our time of life,” sez she.

“What made you do it, Drusilla?” sez I.

“Wall,” she said, “the Deacon wanted to; he thought he couldn’t afford to board in a house; and you know,” sez Drusilla, “that the Deacon is a man of most splendid judgment.”

“Not in this case,” sez I.

And then, at my request, she told me what they had paid out for doctors and medicines, and it come to five dollars and 63 cents more than Josiah and I had paid for our board, and gate fees, and everything.  And that didn’t count in the cost of their two dyspeptic boards, or their agony in sickness and sufferin’, or their total loss of happiness and instruction at the Fair.