Page:Dorothy Canfield--Hillsboro People.djvu/303

 She opened the door in answer to his battering knocks, frowned, and began to say something to him, but was fairly swept off her feet by the torrent of his reproaches.... "How dare you take the information I give you and use it to betray your fellow-man! How do you dare stand there, so mealy-mouthed, and face me, when you are planning a cowardly attack on the liberty of your country! You call yourself a nurse ... what would you think of a mother who hid an ulcer in her child's side from the doctor because it did not look pretty! What else are you planning to do? What would you think of a nurse who put paint and powder on her patient's face, to cover up a filthy skin disease? What else are you planning to do ... you with your plan to put court-plaster over one pustule in ten million and thinking you are helping cure the patient! You are planning simply to please yourself, you cowardly ... and you are an idiot too ..." he beat his hands on the door-jambs, ... if you had the money of forty millionaires, you couldn't do anything in that way ... how many people are you thinking to help ... two, three ... maybe four! But there are hundreds of others ... why, I could read you a thousand stories of worse"

Cousin Tryphena's limit had been reached. She advanced upon the intruder with a face as excited as his own.... "Jombatiste Ramotte, if you ever dare to read me another such story, I'll go right out and jump in the Necronsett River!"

The mania which had haunted earlier generations of her family looked out luridly from her eyes.

I felt the goose-flesh stand out on my arms, and even