That Girl of Johnson's — page 135: what you’re looking at

Machine-transcribed from the original scan — historical spelling and the odd misread are preserved.

124 THAT GIRL OF JOHNSON'S CHAPTER XXVIT. “MAN PROPOSES; GOD DISPOSES.” Johnson did not die; that he lived through the terrible strain upon his vitality showed that he had an iron consti- tution, the doctors said; but the men at the tavern shook their heads over it, and looked meaningly at each other. They had their own opinion of the matter; perhaps they knew more than the doctors did; the wise men might open | their eyes in amazement should they choose to tell their suspicions. Johnson was kept under the influence of opi- ates for three days and nights; he was not left alone one moment; they fed him on Mrs. Allen’s beef tea and drinks, and cared for him as though he were a baby, the men said in half whispers—him, with muscles like iron and cords like an ox. Lodie daily carried the news, brief items briefly told in his measured tones as they gathered in the outer room of the tavern of an evening, or called now and then across the drenched gardens to each other, or met at the wells. And the women over their tubs, as they washed the clothes up and down, and soaped and rinsed and wrung them in clear water, leaving them to soak till the storm should be over, gossiped about “‘this thet hev hap’d Johnsing,” and his girl, and the airs they put on since Lemuel Johnson— he who was born in the settlement years ago—had come with his girl and his gold to see that his brother should live like other folks, and was not so “no °count an’ shef’less.” Dolores, knowing nothing of these gossipings, and caring nothing for them, had she known, watched her father untiringly. She would have nursed him night and day had they allowed her to do so, but she obeyed their — comicbooks.com Yi, BOL ET . —— oem. »