CHAPTER VIII

James and Clemency had hardly started upon their drive before there was a ring at the office door, and Doctor Gordon, who was alone there, answered it.  He was confronted by a man who lived half-way between Alton and the next village on the north.  He had walked some three miles to get some medicine for his wife, who was suffering from rheumatism.  He was pathetically insistent upon the fact that his wife did not require a call from the doctor, only some medicine.  “Now, see here, Joe,” said Gordon, “if I really thought your wife needed a call, I would go, and it should not cost you a cent more than the medicine, but I am dog tired, and not feeling any too well myself, and if her symptoms are just as you say, I think I can send her something which will fix her up all right.”

“She is just the way she was last year,” said the man.  He did not look unlike Gordon, although he was poorly clad, and was a genuine son of the New Jersey soil.  His poor clothes, even his skin, had a clayey hue, as if he had been really cast from the mother earth.  It was frozen outside, but a reddish crust from the last thaw was on his hulking boots.  He spoke with a drawl, which was nasal, and yet had something sweet in it.  “I would have came this afternoon, but I was afraid you might have went out,” he remarked.

“Yes, I was out,” replied Gordon, who was filling out a prescription.  The man stooped and patted the bull terrier, which had not evinced the slightest emotion at his entrance.

“Mighty fine dog,” said the man.

“Yes, he is a pretty good sort,” replied Gordon.

“Shouldn’t like to meet him if I had came up to your house an’ no one round, and he had took a dislike to me.”

“I should not myself,” said Gordon.  “But he does not dislike you.”

“Dogs know me pooty well,” said the man.  “They ain’t no particler likin’ for me.  Don’t want to run and jump an’ wag, but they know I mean well, and they mostly let me alone.”

“Yes, I guess that’s so,” said Gordon.  “Jack would have barked if he had not known you were all right, Joe.”

“Queer how much they know,” said the man reflectively, and a dazed look overspread his dingy face with its cloud of beard.  If once he became launched upon a current of reflection, he lost his mental bearings instantly and drifted.

“Well, they do know,” said Gordon.  “Now listen, Joe!  You see this bottle.  You give your wife a spoonful of the medicine in a glass of water every three hours.  Mind, you make it a whole tumbler full of water.”

“Yes, sir,” replied the man.

“Of course, you need not wake her up if she gets to sleep,” said the doctor, “but every three hours when she is awake.”

“Yes, sir.”  The man began fumbling in his pocket, but Gordon stopped him.  “No,” he said, “put up your pocketbook, Joe.  I don’t want any money.  I get this medicine at wholesale, and it don’t cost much.”