“For there may be a toe out here and there, and there may not, Master Max,” she would observe; “and small odds is it about maybe a toe. But it’s heels I was at last mending-night, and it’s heels you’ll find darned solid.”
Much anxious study of the mystery which doth hedge a needle made Max at last independent of Janet’s darning. Not to vex the poor old lady, he quietly supplemented her labours with personal industry; and when Janet did heels he did toes. Buttons he regarded as a trifle, and even a patch—if no longer to be avoided by care and ingenuity—was not beyond his utmost skill.
Max had graver anxieties than darning. There were, for instance, the money-box and the account-books.
The Doctor’s income was not to be accurately anticipated, but its highest possible total never cost Max much labour in the way of sending in bills. There were so many “gratis” patients. Some were too poor to pay save in thanks; some were old friends, whom the Doctor could not endure to serve except for love alone. When those patients who could pay remembered to do so, the Doctor cashed their cheques and put the change into the money-box—leaving out only a fixed sum, which went to a fund called by Max “Examinations”, and intended to provide for his medical studies by and by. It was a great grief to the Doctor, and therefore to Max, when inroads had to be made into this fund in order to pay the tradesmen’s weekly books. Dread of such a necessity made the darkest hour of Saturday that which Max gave to the family exchequer. His face always wore a portentous solemnity when he raised the lid of the money-box.
The Doctor’s home was an odd little crib standing far back from the road at the very top of a long garden. Alongside of the house was a one-stalled stable and coach-house combined, with a paved square before it and a side-door opening into a lane. Carrots, the Doctor’s ancient steed, was of the nondescript red colour which had suggested to Max his name, and consequently might be seen afar off; a fact that added greatly to his popularity with poor patients anxiously on the look-out for the Doctor. For years the Doctor had trudged afoot on his messages of healing; but a small legacy from a wealthy cousin had sufficed for the building of the stables and for the purchase of Carrots and the trap. The Doctor had friends in Woodend who gladly would have made him the owner of a thoroughbred, a brougham, and a palatial coach-house; but there were limits beyond which a poor man’s pride permitted not the dearest friends to go.
As Max neared his home he put his best foot forward—stepped more sturdily, whistled more cheerily. The lights he watched for had just come into view, when he caught the sound of a child’s sobbing somewhere in the darkness beyond.
“Hallo! who’s there?—Hold hard, don’t run away! Why, Polly, it isn’t you?”
A very tiny, choked voice replied:
“’Es, Mas’r Max.”
“Gracious! Fancy your mother letting a mite like you be out this weather! What are you doing, Polly?”