There was that Simpson examinin’ the baby, and Rose standin’ by, lookin’ awful scairt. He had a rain-gauge in his hand, and was a-squintin’ at it important. “High temper’ture,” he says; “’way up to hunderd and four.” Then he jabbed a spoon jigger into her pore little mouth. Then he made X brands acrosst her soft little back with his fingers. Then he turned her plumb over and begun to tunk her like she was a melon. And when he’d knocked the wind outen her, he pro-duced a bicycle pump, stuck it agin her chest, and put his ear to the other end. “Lungs all right,” he says; “heart all right. Must be––” Course, you know–bugs!
“But–but, couldn’t it be teeth?” ast Rose.
Simpson grinned like she was a’ idjit, and he was sorry as the dickens fer her. “Aw, a baby ain’t all teeth,” he says.
Wal, he left some truck ’r other. Then he goes out, gits into his Pullman section, blows his punkin whistle and departs.
Next day, same thing. Temper’ture’s still up. Medicine cain’t be kept down. Case turrible puzzlin’. Makes all kinds of guesses. Leaves some hoss liniment. Toot! toot!
Day after, changes the program. Sticks a needle into the kid and gits first blood. Says somethin’ about “Modern scientific idears,” and tracks back t’ town.
Things run along that-a-way fer a week. Baby got sicker and sicker. Rose got whiter and whiter, and thinned till she was about as hefty as a shadda. Even the ole man begun t’ look kinda pale ’round the gills. But Simpson didn’t miss a trick. And he come t’ the ranch-house so darned many times that his buckboard plumb oiled down the pike.
“Rose,” I says oncet to her, when I stopped by, “cain’t we give Billy Trowbridge a chanst? That Simpson doc ain’t worth a hill of beans.”
Rose didn’t say nothin’. She just turned and lent over the kid. Gee whiz! I hate t’ see a woman cry!
’Way early, next day, the kid had a convul-sion, and ev’rybody was shore she was goin’ to kick the bucket. And whilst a bunch of us was a-hangin’ ’round the porch, pretty nigh luny about the pore little son-of-a-gun, Bill Rawson come–and he had a story that plumb took the last kink outen us.