It was Farmer Green's new buggy and Farmer Green's bay colt which,

three days later than this, stopped before Dr. Holbrook's office. Not

the square-boxed wagon, with old Sorrel attached; the former was

standing quietly in the chip-yard behind the low red house, while the

latter with his nose over the barnyard fence, neighing occasionally,

as if he missed the little hands which had daily fed him the oatmeal

he liked so much, and which now lay hot and parched and helpless upon

the white counterpane Grandma Markham had spun and woven herself.

Maddy might have been just as sick as she was if the examination had

never occurred, but it was natural for those who loved her to impute

it all to the effects of excitement and cruel disappointment, so there

was something like indignation mingling with the sorrow gnawing at the

hearts of the old couple as they watched by their fever-stricken

darling. Farmer Green, too, shared the feeling, and numerous at first

were his mental animadversions against that "prig of a Holbrook." But

when Maddy grew so bad as not to know him or his wife, he laid aside

his prejudices, and suggested to Grandpa Markham that Dr. Holbrook be

sent for.

"He's great on fevers," he said, "and is good on curin' sick folks,"

so, though he would have preferred some one else should have been

called, confidence in the young doctor's skill won the day, and

grandpa consented.

This, then, was the errand of Farmer Green, and with his usual

bluntness, he said to the recreant doctor, who chanced to be at home: "Wall, you nigh about killed our little Madge t'other day, when you

refused the stifficut, and now we want you to cure her."

The doctor looked up in surprise, but Farmer Green soon explained his

meaning, making out a most aggravated case, and representing Maddy as

wild with delirium.

"Keeps talkin' about the big books, the Latin and the Hebrew, and even

the Catechism, as if such like was 'lowed in our school. I s'pose you

didn't know no better; but if Maddy dies, you'll have it to answer

for, I reckon."

The doctor did not try to excuse himself, but hastily took down the

medicines he thought he might need, and stowed them carefully away. He

had expected to hear from that examination, but not in this way, and

rather nervously he made some inquiries, as to how long she had been

ill, and so forth.

Maddy's case lost nothing by Mr. Green's account, and by the time the

doctor's horse was ready, and he on his way to the cottage, he had

arrived at the conclusion that of all the villainous men outside the

walls of the State's prison, he was the most villainous, and Guy

Remington next.




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