“Yes, I'll go.”
He turned into a narrow lane and in a few minutes they were at the gate. The doctor handed the reins to Mary and went inside. A girl fourteen or fifteen years old with a bald-headed baby on her arm came out of the house and down the path.
“Won't you come in?”
“No, thank you. We will be going home in a minute.”
The girl set the baby on the gate-post. “She's the smartest baby I ever saw,” she said. “She's got a whole mouthful of teeth already.”
“And how old is she?”
“She was ten months old three weeks ago last Saturday.”
As today was Thursday, Mary was on the point of saying, “She will be eleven months old in a few days then,” but checked herself—she understood. It would detract from the baby's smartness to give her eleven months instead of only ten in which to accomplish such wonders in the way of teeth. The doctor came out and they started. Just before they came out to the main road they passed an old deserted house. No signs of life were about it except the very luxuriant life in the tall jimsons and ragweeds growing about it and reaching almost to the top of the low doorway, yawning blackly behind them.
“I think the longest night of my life was spent in that house about sixteen years ago. It's the only house I was ever in where there was nothing at all to read. There wasn't even an almanac.”
Mary laughed. “An almanac is a great deal better than nothing, my dear. I found that out once upon a time when I had to stay in a house for several hours where there was just one almanac and not another printed page. I read the jokes two or three times till they began to pall and then set to work on the signs. I'll always have a regard for them because they gave me a lift through those tedious hours.”