Page:Steadfast Heart.djvu/146

 fatal place to be sick in. “Mary’d do it,” he said to himself, and it was in no effort to persuade himself of the fact that he spoke, but with real belief and confidence. “Doc, can he ride in a carriage as far as my house?”

“Kin if he has to.”

“Take him there, then. Mary would want me to send him.”

“Mary’s a fool,” snapped the doctor. “This ain’t mumps. It’s typhoid—typhoid—and there’s months ahead of him. Don’t go bitin’ off more’n you kin chaw.”

“Dave’s got to be saved.”

“Sure…. ’Tain’t customary, though, to balance a man’s life against ten weeks of discomfort for somebody else.”

“Get a carriage, Bishwhang,” directed Craig, and there the matter ended. Wilkins, burning with fever, twitching, tossing, muttering, was taken to Mary Browning, and Doc Knipe snorted when she said to Craig, “Of course you did right,” and went about her arrangements for the sick man calmly, practically, without the least pretense of fuss or flurry or of doing an unusual thing.

“I’ll nurse him,” cried Lydia Canfield. “I’ll nurse Uncle Dave.”

“You,” said Doc Knipe in his most