Page:West of Dodge (1926).pdf/78

 they were to be neighbors, they would as well be friends from the start.

There were steps leading down from the kitchen door, battered by many a flight of those quick-scurrying feet which seemed going and coming on some endless task across the open door. A woman appeared suddenly on the threshold as Dr. Hall approached, smiling and nodding, wiping her hands on her apron, welcome radiating from her heat-inflamed face.

She was a spare little woman, an eager brightness in her eyes and smile. She gave the instant impression that her fitting office was welcoming strangers at the door. Her muscular short arms were bare to the elbow, her lowcut waist gave freedom and a look of comfort to her handsome neck and well carried head. Not an ordinary woman, in her genial self-possession, to meet in the door of a boarding-train kitchen, thought Dr. Hall.

"I was about to run over and make your acquaintance," she said. "Mr. Farley told us you'd be down to your office to-day—you're the new company doctor, ain't you?"

"Yes, I'm Dr. Hall."

"Glad you come over," said she, in her bustling, quick-arriving way. She came down the steps with a little rush, offering her hand. "I'm Mrs. Charles; glad you come over. Girls, come out and meet the new doctor."

The girls were not far away. Indeed, Dr. Hall was even then grinning at the sight of a neat foot and the flounce of a checked gingham skirt which their owner may or may not have fancied to be out of the line of vision of any male visitor outside the door. There was a little giggling within, a little delay as for adjustment of something or other that had become disarranged, such