One evening the doctor and Mary sat chatting with a neighbor who had dropped in.
“I want to use your 'phone a minute, please,” said a voice.
“Very well,” said Mary, and Mrs. X. stepped in, nodded to the trio, walked to the telephone as one quite accustomed, and rang.
“I want Dr. Brown's office,” she said. In a minute came the hello.
“Is this Dr. Brown? My little boy is sick. I want you to come out to see him this evening. This is Mrs. X. Will you be right out?”
“All right. Good-bye.” And she departed.
The eyes of the visitor twinkled. “Our neighbor hath need of two great blessings,” she said, “a telephone and a sense of humor.” Mary laughed merrily, “O, we're so used to it we paid no attention,” she said, “but I suppose it did strike you as rather funny.”
“It's a heap better than it used to be when we didn't have telephones,” said the doctor, with the hearty laugh that had helped many a downcast man and woman to look on the bright side.
“When I was a young fellow and first hung up my shingle it was a surprising thing—the number of people who could get along without me. I used to long for some poor fellow to put his head in at the door and say he needed me. At last one dark, rainy night came the quick, importunate knock of someone after a doctor. No mistaking that knock. I opened the door and an elderly woman who lived near me, asked breathlessly, ‘Mr. Blank, will you do me a great favor?’
‘Certainly,’ I answered promptly.