As he started off ’Phemie called after him, brightly:
“I’m obliged to you for telling me what you have about grandfather.”
“Beginning to get interested in neighborhood gossip already; are you?” said her sister, when ’Phemie joined her, and they walked back up the lane.
“I believe I am getting interested in everything folks can tell us about grandfather. In his way, Lyddy, Dr. Apollo Phelps must have been a great man.”
“I–I always had an idea he was a little queer,” confessed Lyddy. “His name you know, and all—”
“But people really loved him. He helped them. He gave unostentatiously, and he must have been a very, very good doctor. I–I wonder what Aunt Jane meant by saying that grandfather used to say there were curative waters on the farm?”
“I haven’t the least idea,” replied Lyddy. “Sulphur spring, perhaps–nasty stuff to drink. But listen here to what Aunt Jane says about father.”
“He’s better?” cried ’Phemie.
The older girl’s tone was troubled. “I can’t make out that he is,” she said, slowly, and then she began to read Aunt Jane’s disjointed account of her visit the day before to the hospital: