The Story of a Doctor's Telephone Part 25

Mary was at last too wide awake to think of dozing. This blot on the sweet May Sabbath drove away all thought of day dreams. Poor, miserable human creatures! Poor, long-suffering neighbors, and poor John!

"All sorts of people appeal to him in all sorts of cases, and often in cases which do not come within a doctor's province at all--he is guide, counsellor and friend," she thought as she put on her hat and went out for a walk.

CHAPTER IX.

One Sunday morning at the beginning of August, Mary stood in the church--as it chanced, in the back row--and sang with her next neighbor from the same hymn book, John Newton's good old hymn,

"Amazing grace, how sweet the sound That saved a wretch like me!"

It was the opening hymn and they were in the midst of the third verse.

"Thro' many dangers, toils and snares, I have already come";

sang Mary.

She did not dream that another danger, toil and snare was approaching her at that instant from the rear and so her clear soprano rang out unfaltering on the next line--

"'Tis grace that brought me safe thus far--"

Then a hand was laid upon her shoulder. She turned and started as she saw her husband's face bending to her. What had happened at home?

"Wouldn't you like to go to the country?" whispered the doctor.

"Why--I don't like to leave church to go," Mary whispered back.

"The carriage is right here at the door."

The next instant she had taken her parasol from behind the hymn-books in front of her, where she had propped it a few minutes before, with some misgiving lest it fall to the floor during prayer, and just as the congregation sang the last line,

"And grace will lead me home,"

she glided from the church by the side of the doctor, thankful that in the bustle of sitting down the congregation would not notice her departure. They descended the steps, entered the waiting carriage and off they sped.

"I feel guilty," said Mary, a little dazed over the swift transfer. The doctor did not reply. In another minute she turned to him with energy.

"John, what possessed you to come to _the church_?"

"Why, I couldn't get you at home. I drove around there and Mollie said you had gone to church so I just drove there."

"You ought to have gone without me."

The doctor smiled. "You didn't _have_ to go. But you are better off out here than sitting in the church." The horse switched his tail over the reins and the doctor, failing in his effort to release them, gave vent to a vigorous expletive.

"Yes, I certainly do hear some things out here that I wouldn't be apt to hear in there," she said. Then the reins being released and serenity restored, they went on.

"Isn't that a pretty sight?" The doctor nodded his head toward two little girls in fresh white dresses who stood on the side-walk anxiously watching his approach. There was earnest interest in the blue eyes and the black. Near the little girls stood a white-headed toddler of about two years and by his side a boy seven or eight years old.

"Mr. Blank," called the blue-eyed little girl--all men with or without t.i.tles are _Mr._ to little folks;--the doctor stopped his horse.

"Well, what is it, Mamie?"

"I want you to bring my mamma a baby."

"You do!"

"Yes, sir, a boy baby. Mamie and me wants a little brother," chimed in the little black-eyed girl.

The boy looked down at the toddler beside him and then at the two little girls with weary contempt. "You don't know what you're a-gittin' into,"

he said. "If this one hadn't never learned to walk it wouldn't be so bad, but he jist learns _everything_ and he jist bothers me _all the time_."

The doctor and Mary laughed with great enjoyment. "Now! what'd I tell you!" said the boy, as he ran to pick up the toddler who at that instant fell off the sidewalk. He gave him a vigorous shake as he set him on his feet and a roar went up. "Don't you _git_ any baby at your house," he said, warningly.

"Yes, bring us one, Mr. Blank, please do, a little _bit_ of a one," said Mamie, and the black eyes pleaded too.

"Well, I'll tell you. If you'll be good and do whatever your mamma tells you, maybe I _will_ find a baby one of these days and if I do I'll bring it to your house." He drove on.

"If they knew what I know their little hearts would almost burst for joy. Their father is just as anxious for a boy as they are, too," he added.

They were soon out in the open country. It was one of those lovely days which sometimes come at this season of the year which seem to belong to early autumn; neither too warm nor too cool for comfort. A soft haze lay upon the landscape and over all the Sunday calm. They turned into a broad, dusty road. Mary's eyes wandered across the meadow on the right with its background of woods in the distance. A solitary cow stood contentedly in the shade of a solitary tree, while far above a vulture sailed on slumbrous wings.

The old rail fence and the blackberry briars hugging it here and there in clumps; small cl.u.s.ters of the golden-rod, even now a pale yellow, which by and by would glorify all the country lanes; the hazel bushes laden with their delightful promise for the autumn--Mary noted them all.

They pa.s.sed unchallenged those wayside sentinels, the tall mullein-stalks. The Venus Looking-Gla.s.s nodded its blue head ever so gently as the brown eyes fell upon it and then they went a little way ahead to where the blossoms of the elderberry were turning into tiny globules of green. Mary asked the doctor if he thought the corn in the field would ever straighten up again. A wind storm had pa.s.sed over it and many of the large stalks were almost flat upon the earth. The doctor answered cheerfully that the sun would pull it up again if Aesop wasn't a fraud.

After a while they stopped at a big gate opening into a field.

"Hold the reins, please, till I see if I can get the combination of that gate," and the doctor got out. Mary took a rein in each hand as he opened the gate. She clucked to the horse and he started.

"Whoa! John, come and get my mite. It's about to slip out of my glove."

The doctor glanced at the coin Mary deposited in his palm.

"They didn't lose much."

"The universal collection coin, my dear. Now open the gate wider and I'll drive through."

"Don't hit the gate post!" She looked at him with disdain. "I never drove through a gate in my life that somebody didn't yell, 'Don't hit the gate post' and yet I never _have_ hit a gate post."

At this retort the doctor had much ado to get the gate fastened and pull himself into the buggy, and his laughter had hardly subsided before they drew up to the large farm house in the field. Mary did not go in. In about twenty minutes the doctor came out. The door-step turned, almost causing him to fall. "Here's a fine chance for a broken bone and some of you will get it if you don't fix this step," he growled.

"I'll fix that tomorrow," said the farmer, "but I should think you'd be the last one to complain about it, Doctor."

"Some people seem to think that doctors and their wives are filled with mercenary malice," said Mary laughing. "Yesterday I was walking along with a lady when I stopped to remove a banana skin from the sidewalk.

She said she would think a doctor's wife wouldn't take the trouble to remove banana skins from the walk."