"You have planned and manoeuvred to get all my property into your hands from the very first of it," said John Upham.
"You've drained me dry, an' now I hope you're satisfied." "You had full value in return," replied the doctor, calmly.
"I haven't had time.

In nine cases out of ten, if you had given me a little time, I could have got myself out, and you know it.

You've screwed me down to the very second." "I cannot afford to give my debtors longer time than that regulated by the laws of the commonwealth." Then a sudden strange gleam had come into John Upham's blue eyes.
"Thank the Lord," he cried out, in a trembling fervor of wrath--"thank the Lord, He gives all the time there is to His debtors, an' no commonwealth on the earth can make laws agin it." He had actually then raised a great fist and shaken it before the doctor's face.

"Now, don't you ever darse to darken my doors again, Doctor Seth Prescott!" he had cried out.

"If my wife or my children are sick, I'll let them lay and die before I'll have you in the house!" So saying, John Upham had stridden forth out of the doctor's yard, where he had held the conversation with him, with Jake Noyes and two other men covertly listening.
After that Jake Noyes had given surreptitious advice, with sly shoving of medicine-vials into John Upham's or his wife's hands when the children were ailing, and lately Jerome had taken his place.
"Guess you had better go there instead of me when the young ones are out of sorts," Jake Noyes had told Jerome.