Part 3 (2/2)

The slow clatter of the lawnmower grew louder, and finally ceased beneath the window. The doctor turned, a bottle in each hand. The open sash was filled by a straw hat which formed the frame for a broad, smiling countenance.

”Want any help?” the visitor inquired, genially.

”No, thank you,” answered the doctor, adding, pointedly: ”You have other work to do, you know.”

”Oh, I ain't worryin' about that,” responded his man-servant, rea.s.suringly. ”Old Doc. Williams uster say he'd make kindlin' wood o'

me, when I didn't hustle round, but it never fizzed on me.” He hung himself over the window-sill with a sigh of satisfaction, and gazed admiringly at his employer.

A wire door, leading from the veranda to the main portion of the house, swung slowly open, and a woman, wearing a big, blue-checked ap.r.o.n, and carrying a long pewter spoon, looked out anxiously. ”Davy!” she called in a loud whisper, ”why don't you get on with your work?”

”I'm helpin' the doctor with his mixtures,” he answered, in a tone of remonstrance.

The woman's tight mouth closed emphatically. ”Well, his.h.!.+” she said, raising her spoon warningly. ”Susan Winters is sittin' on her porch, an' she'll hear if you don't look out. It's no use talkin' about things, anyhow.”

The wire door creaked again, Mrs. Munn sailed away, and her son hung himself farther over the window-sill. Evidently he had inherited none of his mother's reticence.

”Say,” he ventured, confidentially, ”Elsie Cameron's home; came yesterday, the very day you came. Ain't that funny?”

The young doctor did not seem to see anything humorous in the coincidence. He glanced meaningly toward the lawnmower.

”I bet she thinks it's a kind of a come-down to come back an' work on the farm after doin' nothin' but sing for so long. She's a bully singer, I tell you, only she's got red hair.”

He waited for some comment, but as there was none forthcoming, except a louder clatter of bottles, he continued: ”Everybody thinks she's so awful good-lookin', but I don't think she's half as pretty as Jean--that's her sister. Say”--his voice sank to a whisper--”did anybody tell you about her sister yet?”

There was a note of strained anxiety, almost amounting to terror, in the boy's tone, that commanded Gilbert's attention. He looked around.

Perhaps it was some serious illness, and the new doctor was badly in need of a patient.

”No. What's the matter with her?” he asked, interestedly.

Davy glanced about him fearfully, as though he were about to disclose the young woman as the author of a deadly crime. He leaned still farther into the room. ”She's--_she's my girl_!” he exploded, in a loud whisper.

The new doctor turned his back suddenly. There was a long pause. ”I must congratulate you,” he said at last, in a smothered voice.

Davy gazed at his broad back uncertainly. He had heard that formula before, but it had always been delivered to the newly wed. He was afraid the doctor was under a pleasant misapprehension.

”We're jist kind o' keepin' company--yet,” he explained carefully.

”An' Jean, she's an awful girl to laugh. An' then there's old lady Cameron--that's her mother. She's a blasted bother. There's never a fella' goes to see them girls but she has to sit 'round an' do all the talkin'. It ain't fair.” His tone was deeply aggrieved. ”You won't like it any better'n' me if you keep company with Elsie,” he added, after a pause.

The doctor turned, and his expression was so alarming that the youth slipped back several feet into the garden. ”That's what everybody's been sayin',” he stammered, in self-defense. ”All the folks was sayin'

you'd be sure to keep company with Elsie when she came home. I thought it would be kind o' handy 'count o' me goin' to see Jean. We'd be company home, nights.”

The indignation that had been rising in the young doctor's gray eyes vanished. He turned quickly to his bottles and indulged in a spasm of silent laughter. But his face was very grave when he looked around again. ”Look here, David,” he said firmly, ”I'd advise you not to discuss my affairs. Neither you nor the rest of the village had better even speculate upon them. You're almost dead sure to be wrong. Now go on with your work.”

The boy slowly and reluctantly detached himself from the window-sill, and set the lawnmower on another zigzag journey. His hat, his coat, and his trousers hung limper than ever. He moved wearily, and at the end of the garden he sat down under a cherry-tree to muse on the strange, sad fact that his new employer promised to be not one whit more companionable than old Doc. Williams.

The young doctor finished his work, and went up the stairs three steps at a time, making a commotion that brought Mrs. Munn from her pie-baking in hurried alarm. He washed his hands, resumed his coat, and, leaning out of the window, wished with all his might that he had something to do. He was seized with an honest, pagan desire that some one would get sick, or that there might be an accident in the mill---just a mild accident, of course; or, better still, that that queer specimen of humanity sitting under his cherry-tree, down there, should be smitten with paralysis. He confessed that this last seemed the most hopeful outlook, then laughed at himself for his monstrous wishes. He seized his hat and ran downstairs. He would go out and explore the village. He must do something, he warned himself, or he would be in danger of rus.h.i.+ng into the street and lacerating the first man he met, just for the sake of sewing him up again.

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