Sandy Part 6

For twenty years Dr. Fenton's old high-seated buggy had jogged over the same daily course. It started at nine o'clock and pa.s.sed with never-varying regularity up one street and down another. When any one was ill a sentinel was placed at the gate to hail the doctor, who was as sure to pa.s.s as the pa.s.senger-train. It was a familiar joke in Clayton that the buggy had a regular track, and that the wheels always ran in the same rut. Once, when Carter Nelson had taken too much egg-nog and his aunt thought he had spinal meningitis, the usual route had been reversed, and again when the blacksmith's triplets were born.

But these were especial occasions. It was a matter for investigation when the doctor's buggy went over the bridge before noon.

"Anybody sick out this way?" asked the miller.

The doctor stopped the buggy to explain.

He was a short, fat man dressed in a suit of Confederate gray. The hand that held the reins was minus two fingers, his willing contribution to the Lost Cause, which was still to him the great catastrophe of all history. His whole personality was a bristling a.r.s.enal of prejudices. When he spoke it was in quick, short volleys, in a voice that seemed to come from the depths of a megaphone.

"Strange boy sick at Judge Hollis's. How's trade?"

"Fair to middlin'," answered the miller. "Do you reckon that there boy has got anything ketchin'?"

"Catching?" repeated the doctor savagely. "What if he has?" he demanded. "Two epidemics of typhoid, two of yellow fever, and one of smallpox--that's my record, sir!"

"Looks like my children will ketch a fly-bite," said the miller, apologetically.

A little farther on the doctor was stopped again--this time by a maiden in a pink-and-white gingham, with a ma.s.s of light curls bobbing about her face.

"Dad!" she called as she scrambled over the fence. "Where you g-going, dad?"

The doctor flapped the lines nervously and tried to escape, but she pursued him madly. Catching up with the buggy, she pulled herself up on the springs and thrust an impudent, laughing face through the window at the back.

"Annette," scolded her father, "aren't you ashamed? Fourteen years old, and a tomboy! Get down!"

"Where you g-going, dad?" she stammered, unabashed.

"To Judge Hollis's. Get down this minute!"

"What for?"

"Somebody's sick. Get down, I say!"

Instead of getting down, she got in, coming straight through the small window, and arriving in a tangle of pink and white at his side.

The doctor heaved a prodigious sigh. As a colonel of the Confederacy he had exacted strict discipline and unquestioning obedience, but he now found himself ignominiously reduced to the ranks, and another Fenton in command.

At Hollis Farm the judge met them at the gate. He was large and loose-jointed, with the frame of a t.i.tan and the smile of a child. He wore a long, loose dressing-gown and a pair of slippers elaborately embroidered in green roses. His big, irregular features were softened by an expression of indulgent interest toward the world at large.

"Good morning, doctor. Howdy, Nettie. How are you all this morning?"

"Who's sick?" growled the doctor as he hitched his horse to the fence.

"It's a stray lad, doctor; my old cook, Melvy, played the good Samaritan and picked him up off the road last night. She brought him to me this morning. He's out of his head with a fever."

"Where'd he come from?" asked the doctor.

"Mrs. Hollis says he was peddling goods up at Main street and the bridge last night."

"Which one is he?" demanded Annette, eagerly, as she emerged from the buggy. "Is he g-good-looking, with blue eyes and light hair? Or is he b-black and ugly and sort of cross-eyed?"

The judge peered over his gla.s.ses quizzically. "Thinking about the boys, as usual! Now I want to know what business you have noticing the color of a peddler's eyes?"

Annette blushed, but she stood her ground. "All the g-girls noticed him. He wasn't an ordinary peddler. He was just as smart and f-funny as could be."

"Well, he isn't smart and funny now," said the judge, with a grim laugh.

The two men pa.s.sed up the long avenue and into the house. At the door they were met by Mrs. Hollis, whose small angular person breathed protest. Her black hair was arranged in symmetrical bands which were drawn tightly back from a straight part. When she talked, a gold-capped tooth was disclosed on each side of her mouth, giving rise to the judge's joke that one was capped to keep the other company, since Mrs. Hollis's sense of order and regularity rebelled against one eye-tooth of one color and the other of another.

"Good morning, doctor," she said shortly; "there's the door-mat. No, don't put your hat there; I'll take it. Isn't this a pretty business for Melvy to come bringing a sick tramp up here--on general cleaning-day, too?"

"Aren't all days cleaning-days to you, Sue?" asked the judge, playfully.

"When you are in the house," she answered sharply. Then she turned to the doctor, who was starting up the stairs:

"If this boy is in for a long spell, I want him moved somewhere. I can't have my carpets run over and my whole house smelling like a hospital."

"Now, Susan," remonstrated the judge, gently, "we can't turn the lad out. We've got room and to spare. If he's got the fever, he'll have to stay."

"We'll see, we'll see," said the doctor.

But when he tiptoed down from the room above there was no question about it.

"Very sick boy," he said, rubbing his hand over his bald head. "If he gets better, I might take him over to Mrs. Meech's; he can't be moved now."

"Mrs. Meech!" cried Mrs. Hollis, in fine scorn. "Do you think I would let him go to that dirty house--and with this fever, too? Why, Mrs.

Meech's front curtains haven't been washed since Christmas! She and the preacher and Martha all sit around with their noses in books, and never even know that the water-spout is leaking and the porch needs mopping! You can't tell me anything about the Meeches!"

Neither of the men tried to do so; they stood silent in the doorway, looking very grave.

"For mercy sake! what is that in the front lot?" exclaimed Mrs.

Hollis.

The doctor had an uncomfortable premonition, which was promptly verified. One of the judge's friskiest colts was circling madly about the driveway, while astride of it, in triumph, sat Annette, her dress ripped at the belt, her hair flying.

"If she don't need a woman's hand!" exclaimed Mrs. Hollis. "I could manage her all right."

The doctor looked from Mrs. Hollis, with her firm, close-shut mouth, to the flying figure on the lawn.

"Perhaps," he said, lifting his brows; but he put the odds on Annette.

That night, when Aunt Melvy brought the lamp into the sitting-room, she waited nervously near Mrs. Hollis's chair.

"Miss Sue," she ventured presently, "is de cunjers comin' out?"

"The what?"

"De cunjers what dat pore chile's got. I done tried all de spells I knowed, but look lak dey didn't do no good."

"He has the fever," said Mrs. Hollis; "and it means a long spell of nursing and bother for me."