doctor bled Simpson's goat; and opening a vein in Simpson's arm, he
injected about two quarts of the blood into the patient's system.
Simpson immediately began to revive, but, singular to relate, no
sooner had his strength returned than he jumped out of bed; and
twitching his head about after the fashion of a goat, he made a savage
attempt to butt the doctor. That medical gentleman, after having
Simpson's head plunged against his stomach three or four times, took
refuge in the closet; whereupon Simpson banged his head against the
panel of the door a couple of times, and would probably have broken
it to splinters had not his mother-in-law entered at that moment and
diverted his attention. One well-directed blow from Simpson floored
her, and then, while she screamed for help, Simpson frolicked around
over the floor, making assiduous efforts to nibble the green flowers
in the ingrain carpet. When they called the hired man in and tied him
down on the bed, an effort was made to interview him, but the only
answer he could give to such questions as how he felt and when he
wanted his medicine was a "ba-a" precisely like that of a goat, and
then he would strain himself in an effort to butt a hole in the
headboard. The condition of the patient was so alarming, and Mrs.
Simpson was so indignant, that Dr. Perkins determined to undo the evil
if possible. So he first bled Simpson freely, and then, by heavily
bribing Simpson's Irishman, he procured fresh blood from him, and
injected Simpson the second time. Simpson recovered, but he shocked
his old Republican friends by displaying an irresistible tendency to
vote the Democratic ticket, and made his mother-in-law mad by speaking
with a strong brogue. He gradually gave up butting, and never indulged
in it in a serious manner but once, and that was on a certain Sunday,
when, one of the remaining corpuscles of goat's blood getting into his
brain just as he was going into church, he butted the sexton halfway
up the aisle, and only recovered himself sufficiently to apologize