“It sounds as if it might be half a mile.”
“It is right up here in this tree in the field.”
“Is it,” said Mary, looking up. “Yes, I see, it's as pretty and soft as its voice. But I'm getting sunburned, John. How hot a March day can get!”
“Only two more miles and good road all the way.”
A few minutes more and Mary was set down at Centerville, “I'll be back about sunset,” announced her husband as he drove off.
A very pleasant-faced woman answered the knock at the door. She had a shingle in her hand and several long strips of muslin over her arm. She smilingly explained that she didn't often meet people at the door with a shingle but that she was standing near the door when the knock came.
Mary, standing by the bed and removing hat and gloves, looked about her.
“What are you doing with that shingle and all this cotton and stuff, Mrs. Parkin?” she asked.
“Haven't you ever made a splint?”
“A splint? No indeed, I'm not equal to that.”