“I guess she’ll cut full as good a figure in my old silk and her old bonnet with a new ribbon on it as any of the girls,” said she.  Then she added, with a skilful swerve from whole truths and half-truths alike:  “You’d better hurry, Jerome, or you’ll be late to meetin’.  Elmira is out of sight, an’ the bell’s ’most stopped tollin’.”

“I am not going this morning,” said Jerome.

“Why not, I’d like to know?”

“John Upham sent his oldest boy over here this morning to tell me the baby’s sick.  I am going over there and see if I can do anything.”

“I should think John Upham had better send for Doctor Prescott instead of taking you away from meeting.”

“You know he won’t, mother.  I believe he’d let the baby die before he would.  I’ve got to go there and do the best I can.”

“Well, all I’ve got to say is, he ought to be ashamed of himself if he’d let his own baby die before he’d call in the doctor, I don’t care how bad he’s treated him.  I shouldn’t wonder if John Upham was some to blame about that; there’s always two sides to a story.”

Jerome made no reply.  He would have been puzzled several times lately, had he considered it of sufficient moment, by his mother’s change of attitude towards Doctor Prescott.  He went to the china-closet beside the chimney.  On the upper shelves was his mother’s best china tea-set; on the lower a little array of cloudy bottles; some small bunches of herbs, all nicely labelled, were packed in the wide space at the bottom.

His mother’s antagonistic eyes followed him.  “I dun’no’ as I can have them herbs in my china-closet much longer,” said she; “they’re scentin’ up the dishes too much.  If I want to have a little company to tea, I ain’t goin’ to have the tea all flavored with spearmint an’ catnip.”

“Well, I’ll move them when I come home,” said Jerome, with his usual concession, which always aggravated his mother more than open rebellion, although she admired him for it.  “I only brought those little bundles down from the barn loft to have them handy.  I’ll rig up a cupboard for them in the woodshed.”

Jerome tucked a bottle or two in his pocket, and rolled up a little bouquet of herbs in paper.

“I should think it would be time for you to go and see that young one after meeting,” said his mother, varying her point of attack when she met with no resistance.

“I’ll go to meeting this afternoon,” replied Jerome, in the tone with which he might have pacified a fretful child.  There was no self-justification in it.

“I s’pose Doctor Prescott will be mad if he hears of your goin’ there, an’ I dun’no’ but I should be in his place,” she said, as Jerome went out.  Then, as he did not answer, she added, calling out shrilly: 

“I don’t see why John Upham can’t call in Lawrence, if he wants a doctor; he’s begun to study with his father; he can’t have nothin’ against him.  I guess he knows as much as you do.”