They reached the outskirts of Hammerville in the late afternoon, and stopped at the very first house to enquire where Dr. Plumstead lived.
The woman who opened the door to them declared that she did not know.
"I don't hold with doctors, and physic, and that sort of stuff, so I don't know nothing about them," she said ungraciously, and then shut the door in their faces.
"Disagreeable old thing; I hope that she will be ill and want the doctor very soon," said Billykins, shaking an indignant fist in the direction of the closed door.
"That is very uncharitable of you," said Sylvia, "and besides, she does not look as if she would be at all a good paying patient, and so it would only be a bit more drudgery for dear Father, for, of course, a doctor must go to everyone who has need of him, whether the patient can pay or not."
"Then I shall not be a doctor, for I don't want to do things for people who can't pay me," said Don; and then he ran up to a pleasant-faced girl, who was weeding the garden of the next house, and asked her if she could tell him where Dr. Plumstead lived.
"Why, yes, he has got a house on the Icksted Road, that is on the Pig Hill side of the town," she said, standing up to survey the wagon and as many of its occupants as chanced to be visible.
"Is it far?" demanded Don anxiously.
"Oh, somewhere about a mile! You must turn to the left when you have passed Dan Potter's saloon; that is right in the middle of the town, so you can't miss it. What do you want the doctor for? Is anyone bad?"
"We have come to live with him; we are his children, you know," explained Don, with the engaging frankness which he could display sometimes, although as a rule he was more reserved with strangers than Rumple or Billykins.