“May I see you put it on, Doctor?” asked Mary, rising and coming forward.
“Why, good afternoon, Mrs. Blank. I'm glad to see you out here. Yes, come right in. How's the doctor?”
“Oh, he is well and happy—I think he expects to cut off a foot this afternoon.”
A boy with a frightened look on his face stood in the doctor's office with one sleeve rolled up. The doctor adjusted the fracture, then applied the splint while his wife held it steady until he had made it secure. When the splint was in place and the boy had gone a messenger came to tell the doctor he was wanted six miles away.
About half an hour afterward a little black-eyed woman came in and said she wanted some more medicine like the last she took.
“The doctor's gone,” said Mrs. Parkin, “and will not be back for several hours.”
“Well, you can get it for me, can't you?”
“Do you know the name of it?”
“No, but I believe I could tell it if I saw it,” said the patient, going to the doctor's shelves and looking closely at the bottles and phials with their contents of many colors. She took up a three-ounce bottle. “This is like the other bottle and I believe the medicine is just the same color. Yes, I'm sure it is,” she said, holding it up to the light. Mary looked at her and then at Mrs. Parkin.
“I wouldn't like to risk it,” said the latter lady.