“Yes; I—­” replied Mrs. Lathrop.

“Oh!” Susan’s face darkened.  “I declare, that’s too bad.  ‘N’ young Dr. Brown ’s gone now too.  I see him ‘n’ Amelia drivin’ out towards the Sperrits’ while I was in the square.  Well, if it’s on, it’s on, ‘n’ the Lord be with you, Mrs. Lathrop, f’r ’f Gran’ma Mullins says truth, no one else c’n help you now.  You see, she told Mrs. Macy ‘n’ me what plaster is.  It’s eatin’, that’s what it is.  Plaster ‘ll eat anythin’ right up, hide, hair, ‘n’ all.  She says don’t you know how, when you smell a dead rat in the wall, you throw some plaster in on him, ‘n’ after a while you don’t smell no more rat ’cause there ain’t no more rat there to smell; the plaster ’s eat him all up.  She says you may laugh ’f you feel so inclined, but there ain’t no such big difference between your leg ‘n’ a dead rat but what it’ll pay you to mark her words.  She says ’f it don’t do no more ’n eat the skin off it’ll still be pretty hard for you to lay there without no skin ‘n’ feel the plaster goin’ in more ‘n’ more.  She says ’t we all wish him well, ‘n’ yet no one in their right mind c’n deny as young Dr. Brown is n’t old Dr. Carter, ‘n’ no amount o’ well wishin’ c’n ever make him so.  She says ’f she was you she ’d never rest till old Dr. Carter ’d looked into that leg, f’r a leg is a leg, ‘n’ it says in the Bible ’t if you lose your salt what ’ll you salt with.”

Mrs. Lathrop’s distress deepened visibly.

“I tell you I was more ’n a little troubled over her words.  Gran’ma Mullins ain’t one to make up nothin’, ‘n’ I know myself ’t that ’s true about the plaster.  I ’ve eat up rats that way time ‘n’ again,—­mice too, f’r that matter.  It ’d be an awful thing f’r you to lay there peaceful ‘n’ happy till it come time f’r him to unwrap your leg ‘n’ then when he unwrapped have him find no leg in the centre.  Nothin’ ’t he could say would help any—­there you ’d be one leg gone forever.  ’F it was your foot, it ’d all be different, f’r you could hop around right spry with a false foot, but I d’n’ know what good your foot ‘ll do you with the leg in between gone.  I never hear o’ no real foot on a false leg, ‘n’ ’f I was you, I certainly wouldn’t want to lay wonderin’ ’f I still had two legs f’r six weeks.”

“Six weeks!” cried Mrs. Lathrop, with a start that collapsed at once into a groan; “must I lay—­”

“Gran’ma Mullins says,” pursued Susan, “’t the reason she knows so much about it all is ’t she had a cousin with a broken leg once.  It wa’n’t no cow ‘s kicked him, jus’ he was give to meditatin’, ‘n’ while meditatin’ durin’ house-cleanin’ he stepped down the wrong side o’ the step-ladder.  She says the doctor didn’t so much ‘s dream o’ plasterin’ him up, he put splints on him, ‘n’ he come out fine, but she says he was suthin’ jus’ awful to take care of.  They thought they couldn’t stand it the first weeks he was so terrible cross, but then his bones begin to knit, ‘n’ she says she hopes she may fall dead then ‘n’ there ‘f she ever hear anythin’ to equal that leg-knittin’.  She said they was livin’ so far out ’t they could feel to leave him ‘n’ go to church Sunday, ‘n’ she says when they was comin’ back they could hear him knittin’ a good half-mile away.”