He was a short, fat man dressed in a suit of Confederate gray. The hand that held the reins was minus two fingers, his willing contribution to the Lost Cause, which was still to him the great catastrophe of all history. His whole personality was a bristling arsenal of prejudices. When he spoke it was in quick, short volleys, in a voice that seemed to come from the depths of a megaphone.
"Strange boy sick at Judge Hollis's. How's trade?"
"Fair to middlin'," answered the miller. "Do you reckon that there boy has got anything ketchin'?"
"Catching?" repeated the doctor savagely. "What if he has?" he demanded. "Two epidemics of typhoid, two of yellow fever, and one of smallpox that's my record, sir!"
"Looks like my children will ketch a fly-bite," said the miller, apologetically.
A little farther on the doctor was stopped again this time by a maiden in a pink-and-white
gingham, with a mass of light curls bobbing about her face.
"Dad!" she called as she scrambled over the fence. "Where you g-going, dad?"
The doctor flapped the lines nervously and tried to escape, but she pursued him madly. Catching up with the buggy, she pulled herself up on the springs and thrust an impudent, laughing face through the window at the back.
"Annette," scolded her father, "aren't you ashamed? Fourteen years old, and a tomboy! Get down!"