Page:The New-Year's Bargain (1884).djvu/182

 of an acorn had been allowed to lie for two hours and twenty minutes by the sun. But most of the squirrels laughed at the new medicine, and declared that it did them no good; while the few who believed injured the water almost as much, by calling it dangerously strong. At last one very nervous old lady, Mrs. Hopper by name, was thrown into a fit by finding out, two days afterward, that she had by mistake swallowed half a drop more than the right dose; and after that nobody dared to try any more. So, upon the whole, Nippy decided not to be a Doctress, but something else. She took a week to think it over, and then startled the whole community by the following placard:—