“Is that you, Peter Lane?” she asked.
“Yes'm,” Peter answered.
“Well, it's time you come, I must say,” said the widow, between groans. “You the only man anywheres near, and you'd leave me die here as soon as not. You got to feed the cows and the horse and give the chickens some grain and then hitch up and fetch a doctor as fast as he can be fetched. I might have laid here for weeks, you 're that unreliable. I'll put the barn key on the kitchen table, and when the doctor comes I'll be in my bed, if the Lord lets me live that long. I'll be in it anyway, I dare say, dead or alive, if I can manage to get to it. And don't you come in until I get out of the way, for I ain't got a stitch on but my night-gown.”
“I won't,” said Peter, and he didn't. He gave Mrs. Potter time to get into twenty beds, if she had been so minded, before he opened the kitchen door a crack and peeped in. He hurried through the chores as rapidly as he could, feeding the stock and the chickens and milking the cows. He had eaten part of the omelet Buddy had commenced, but he thought it only right he should have a satisfying drink of the warm milk, and he took it. He made a fire in the kitchen stove and saw that the iron tea-kettle was full of water, and then he harnessed the horse and drove briskly to town and sought a doctor.
It was the hour when physicians were making their calls and the first two Peter sought were out, but Dr. Roth, the new doctor who had come from Willets to build a practice in the larger town, happened to be in his office over Moore's Drug Store, and he drew on his coat and gloves while Peter explained the object of his visit.
“I ain't running Mrs. Potter's affairs,” said Peter, “for there ain't no call for her to have nobody to run them, but, if I was, I'd get a sort of nurse-woman to go up and take care of her. She's all alone, and I don't know how sick she is.”
“Then you are not Mr. Potter?” asked the doctor.
“I ain't nothing at all like that,” said Peter. “I'm a shanty-boatman and my boat is right near the widow's place, and I do odd chores for her. Old Potter died and went where he belongs quite some time ago.”
The doctor agreed to pick up Mrs. Skinner on his way, Mrs. Skinner being one of those plump, useful creatures that are willing to do nursing, washing, or general housework by the day.
“And another thing, doctor,” said Peter, as the doctor closed his office door, “whilst you are out there I want you to drop down to the cove below the widow's house, to a shanty-boat you'll see there, and take a look at the woman I've got in it. So far as I can make out she's a mighty sick woman. I'll try to get back before you get through with the widow, but you'd better take my key, if I shouldn't. I'll pay whatever it costs to treat her. I'm quite ready to do that.”