I know the kind of advice she got from those silly old women.  ‘No use callin’ in th’ doctor.  Them things comes on all right if yer has patience.  They doctors does dreadful things.  I’s had seven an’ here I be, an’ no doctor ever nigh me.’  Oh!  I can hear the poor fools speaking, and naturally she took their advice.  Then, of course, when she was gasping for breath and beginning to grow cold they sent for me, thirty miles away, and when I landed they told me it was all over, and I found them moaning, with a wild-eyed man huddled up in a corner hardly able to understand, and a lot of little ones crying for food.”

He stopped and wiped his brow with his handkerchief, and looked around him, without appearing to see any of us.  It was like a pent-up stream that had burst from its dam, and the flood was not yet exhausted.

“I felt like cursing the lot of them,” he continued, “and giving them the tongue-lashing of their lives.  But much good it would have done, and I managed to hold myself back!  I couldn’t help telling them that they should have sent for me three days ago, when things began to go wrong.  They know well enough how to weep over their misery, but no one can make them use their silly heads.  They keep on coming with infected gurry sores as if arms could be saved after they’ve nearly rotted away, and send for me to see the dying, as if I could raise them from their beds.”

He had stopped suddenly, and looked embarrassed.

“I beg your pardon,” he said.  “I should not have spoken of these things.  They are all a part of the game.  I daresay I ought to have gone up on the hill, back of the cliffs, and had a good bout of bad language all to myself, where none could hear me.”

Neither the parson nor his wife appeared to be the least bit shocked at this.  They knew from long experience the things that try men’s souls.

“I’m glad you’ve spoken,” I told him.  “It has relieved you, I’m sure, and we all sympathize with you.”

Long ago, Aunt Jennie, you told me that a man is nothing but a grown-up boy.  This one looked around the room.  Daddy was smiling at him in his dear friendly fashion, and the other two were kindliness itself.

“A fellow doesn’t always take his medicine like a little man,” he said, apologetically, “and you’re all ever so good.”

Then he left, still looking just a little bit ashamed of himself, as I’ve seen fellows do in a defeated crew when they have sunk down for a moment on their sliding seats.

“I think the boy feels alone, sometimes,” said Mrs. Barnett.  “He has really a great deal to contend with.  But he is a splendid fellow, and I’m sorry for him.  Every one loves him in Sweetapple Cove, you know.”

Presently the two left us, after I had promised to go to the little church on the next day.  Susie had come in with a lighted lantern, clad to her feet in an ancient oilskin coat, and insisted on seeing them home.  They thanked us very charmingly and I watched their departure, the reflections of the light playing over the deep puddles on the road.