John Ellery heard the discussions at the sewing circle when, in company with some of the men of his congregation, he dropped in at these gatherings for tea after the sewing was over.  He heard them at church, before and after the morning service, and when he made pastoral calls.  People even asked his opinion, and when he changed the subject inferred, some of them, that he did not care about the doings of Come-Outers.  Then they switched to inquiries concerning his health.

“You look awful peaked lately, Mr. Ellery,” said Didama Rogers.  “Ain’t you feelin’ well?”

The minister answered that he was as well as usual, or thought he was.

“No, no, you ain’t nuther,” declared Didama.  “You look’s if you was comin’ down with a spell of somethin’.  I ain’t the only one that’s noticed it.  Why, Thankful Payne says to me only yesterday, ‘Didama,’ says she, ‘the minister’s got somethin’ on his mind and it’s wearin’ of him out.’  You ain’t got nothin’ on your mind, have you, Mr. Ellery?”

“I guess not, Mrs. Rogers.  It’s a beautiful afternoon, isn’t it?

“There!  I knew you wa’n’t well.  A beautiful afternoon, and it hotter’n furyation and gettin’ ready to rain at that!  Don’t tell me!  ’Tain’t your mind, Mr. Ellery, it’s your blood that’s gettin’ thin.  My husband had a spell just like it a year or two afore he died, and the doctor said he needed rest and a change.  Said he’d ought to go away somewheres by himself.  I put my foot down on that in a hurry.  ‘The idea!’ I says.  ‘You, a sick man, goin’ off all alone by yourself to die of lonesomeness.  If you go, I go with you.’  So him and me went up to Boston and it rained the whole week we was there, and we set in a little box of a hotel room with a window that looked out at a brick wall, and set and set and set, and that’s all.  I kept talkin’ to him to cheer him up, but he never cheered.  I’d talk to him for an hour steady and when I’d stop and ask a question he’d only groan and say yes, when he meant no.  Finally, I got disgusted, after I’d asked him somethin’ four or five times and he’d never answered, and I told him, I believed he was gettin’ deef.  ‘Lordy!’ he says, ‘I wish I was!’ Well, that was enough for me.  Says I, ‘If your mind’s goin’ to give out we’d better be home.’  So home we come.  And that’s all the good change and rest done him.  Hey?  What did you say, Mr. Ellery?”

“Er—­oh, nothing, nothing, Mrs. Rogers.”

“Yes.  So home we come and I’d had enough of doctors to last.  I figgered out that his blood was thinnin’ and I knew what was good for that.  My great Aunt Hepsy, that lived over to East Wellmouth, she was a great hand for herbs and such and she’d give me a receipt for thickenin’ the blood that was somethin’ wonderful.  It had more kind of healin’ herbs in it than you could shake a stick at.  I cooked a kittleful and got him to take a dose four times a day.  He made more fuss than a young one about takin’