I looked out across the river, and calculated how I could fix it so Mrs. Murphy wouldn't say nothin' outside about that poor kid of mine, and how to keep the kid hid until me and Marthy could take her and skin out for the mountains.
Mrs. Murphy was a terrible chatty lady—sort of perpetual phonygraft, and wholesale and retail news agency. I guessed the best I could do was to lock her in the cellar and then herd all comers away from the house.
Doc Wolfert didn't bother me any. I knowed he wouldn't give me away.
If anybody could so much as git him to admit that there was a baby born at my house they would be lucky. Just as a sample of what Doc was like, take the case of Sandy Sam, who fell down the mine shaft and was brought up in the bucket, as dead as Adam. Doc was on the ground as soon as they brought Sandy up, and one of the boys that come late asked Doc what caused the crowd to congregate.
“Well,” says Doc, lookin' off at an angle into the air, “it looks like Sandy Sam, or some other feller, fell down the mine shaft.”
“Poor old Sam,” says the feller, “killed him, didn't it?”
Doc looked at the sky and considered.
“It's a remarkable deep shaft,” he says at last; “remarkable deep.” “Thunder!” says the feller. “I know it's a deep shaft. What I asked you is if Sam's dead. Is he?”
Doc went off into a dream, and when he come to, he looks at the feller.
“Oh!” he says, absent like. “Is Sam dead? Perhaps! Perhaps he is. I shouldn't like to say. But,” he ended up, sort of pullin' hisself together at the finish, “I wouldn't like to express an opinion, but I guess the boys think he is. They are goin' to bury him.”