his horse into the lane which led up to the door.  When he reached the house he noticed that no smoke was coming from the chimney and that the windows were slightly rimmed with frost, as if there were no heat within.  Rapping at the door and receiving no response, he opened it and went in.  There he found his old charge, sick and wandering in his mind, lying upon a broken-down bed and moaning in pain.  There was no fire in the fireplace.  The coverings with which the bed was fitted were but two or three old worn and faded quilts, and the snow was sifting in badly through the cracks where the chinking had fallen out between the logs, and under the doors and windows.

Going up to the sufferer and finding that some one of his old, and to the doctor well-known, maladies had at last secured a fatal grip upon him, he first administered a tonic which he knew would give him as much strength as possible, and then went out into the yard, where, after putting up his horse, he gathered chips and wood from under the snow and built a roaring fire.  Having done this, he put on the kettle, trimmed the lamp, and after preparing such stimulants as the patient could stand, took his place at the bedside, where he remained the whole night long, keeping the fire going and the patient as comfortable as possible.  Toward morning the sufferer died and when the sun was well up he finally returned to his family, who anxiously solicited him as to his whereabouts.

“I was with Id Logan,” he said.

“What’s ailing him now?” his daughter inquired.

“Nothing now,” he returned.  “It was only last night,” and for years afterward he commented on the death of “poor old Id,” saying always at the conclusion of his remarks that it must be a dreadful thing to be sick and die without friends.

His love for his old friends and familiar objects was striking, and he could no more bear to see an old friend move away than he could to lose one of his patients.  One of his oldest friends was a fine old Christian lady by the name of Weeks, who lived down in Louter Creek bottoms and in whose household he had practiced for nearly fifty years.  During the latter part of his life, however, this family began to break up, and finally when there was no one left but the mother she decided to move over into Whitley County, where she could stay with her daughter.  Just before going, however, she expressed a wish to see Doctor Gridley, and he called in upon her.  A little dinner had been prepared in honor of his coming.  After it was over and the old times were fully discussed he was about to take his leave when Mrs. Weeks disappeared from the room and then returned, bearing upon her arm a beautiful yarn spread which she held out before her and, in her nervous, feeble way getting the attention of the little audience, said: 

“Doctor, I am going up to Whitley now to live with my daughter, and I don’t suppose I will get to see you very often any more.  Like myself, you are getting old, and it will be too far for you to come.  But I want to give you this spread that I have woven with my own hands since I have been sixty years of age.  It isn’t very much, but it is meant for a token of the love and esteem I bear you, and in remembrance of all that you have done for me and mine.”