"Dearie child, when the young folks come an' tell me things like you're tellin' me now, I reckon there ain't anybody in the world as well off as me! An' I'll tell you jest what it is makes you do it—it's because I'm so happy! An' I'll tell you jest what makes me so happy. I let Pap take keer o' me, an' I try to take keer o' him an' jest as many other folks as I can! That's the whole of it!" After a pause she added, "You're goin' to do jest the same as me, both in keering for someone, an' in bein' took keer of!"
Rosamund's eyes opened wide; she paled a little and pressed her hand against her trembling lips. "I don't know," she whispered. "I'm afraid! Oh, I'm afraid!"
Mother Cary patted the hand she held, and knew too much to speak. Their thoughts, in the silence, wandered far; came back and dwelt upon the things that were, the things to be; there is no way of knowing whether they went hand in hand, but after a while Mother Cary said:
"Dearie, I wouldn't tell him, if I was you, about—about all you have, the money an'—you know!—I wouldn't tell the doctor yet a while!"
Rosamund drew her breath sharply, and her face flamed; she was too startled to answer, but in a moment she left her place on the bench and knelt beside the old woman, hiding her face on the knees where so many had found comfort. Mother Cary smoothed her hair, and after a while began to talk, almost as if to herself.
"There's a friend o' mine sometimes spends her summers up around here; she's married to a eye doctor—that's how come Yetta got sent up here to me. Her husband knew Doctor Ogilvie down in the city. She told me there never was one they thought more of, down there; they said he found out more about nerves than anybody else in the world, and he used to work day and night and in between times, trying to discover more. They said there never was such a one with little child'en; he could almost make 'em over new, seemed like. They said he never cared whether folks could pay him or not for what he did—all he cared for was the curin' of 'em. I can well believe it, too, for many's the time I see him almost starved without knowin' what's the matter with him, and he ain't a mite particler about his clo'es. Well, he worked an' he worked; and one day my friend's husband, that was one o' his friends, went into his little room where he kept his bottles and things, and found him layin' on the floor. They thought he surely would die, but praise the Lord, that wasn't to be; only, he had to give up his work down in the big horspital. I often think on what that must 'a' been to him. I reckon it must 'a' been worse than it would be for Pap to give up a raisin' them white hogs o' his he's so proud of. Anyway, he come up here, an' he got well! And now he says he hasn't got time to go back there again—there's too much for him to do up here all the time. So he jest rides around the country with that Rosy horse. Somebody asked him once why he didn't buy an automobile. He said for one thing he hadn't the money for it; and for another, he needed White Rosy to remind him where he was going!"
Mother Cary stopped to laugh; Rosamund raised her head, with an answering smile that was half tears.
"Land sakes," Mother Cary went on, "I do believe if it wasn't for Rosy he'd sometimes forget to come home! When they get to one o' the houses where he visits, Rosy stops and turns her head around; ef he don't say anything to her, there she stands; but if he tells her he don't have to get out there that day, Rosy jogs along to the next place! I'm real fond o' humans, but sometimes I do wish't they all knew as much as the doctor's Rosy!"
This time Rosamund joined in the laugh. But the old woman had more to tell. "Time was when I might 'a' wondered how come he stays on here, him bein' the great doctor he is; but I'm so old now that I know too much to wonder about anything any more! There's folks in this world that never can find any work to do, and there's folks that makes work for themselves, and then again there's folks that are so busy with the work right at hand that they never get time to find out whether they're workin' or not. That's Doctor Ogilvie's kind. He's so busy workin' up here in the mountings, that he never stops to think about whether he is doing the work he likes best or not; it's just work he has to do, because it's here to be done, and that's all there is to it for him. He works so hard at it, inside his own head, that he forgets most everything else. Land, I remember the time he sat up with me all night long, workin' over Milly Grate's baby that had the membranious croup—dipthery, he called it. Come mornin', an' he told Milly the baby'd get well, he suddenly went out and sat right down on the doorstep; come to find out, he'd brought two babies into the world the day before and driven twenty-two miles and walked about a dozen—and forgotten to take a bite to eat! Another time, somebody sent a little boy over the mounting for him in a hurry; he was at a house where a man had broke his leg, and White Rosy was waitin' for him at the gate; but when he heard how bad off the little girl was he'd been sent for, didn't he jest set out and run all the way there, forgettin' that there was such a thing as a wagon to ride in, and White Rosy still a waitin'!
"And he boards with the Widder Speers, where it ain't likely she can make him very comfortable, she bein' well past eighty; but he found out soon after he come up here that she would have to be moved to—the place where nobody likes to go!—she not having any support; so he boards there, an' she doesn't have to leave her home, that her husband built for her when they was married, and where her only son died. You might hunt the world over, honey-bird, without findin' any better man than Doctor Ogilvie! But, somehow or other, ef I was you, I wouldn't let on to him that I had as much money as you say you have. Money's a dreadful stumblin'-block to some people! And you never can tell which way men folks'll jump!"