“He is all right,” nodded her father.
“But suppose he shouldn’t want to go? I heard that Dr. Leggett is hoping he won’t be called.”
“Leggett has too many interests here in town.”
“One big interest,” Polly smiled. “Dr. Abbe is too diffident to look at a girl; but the children like him immensely. He is bashful even with them—I have noticed it. Strange he should be, so able a man.”
The Doctor looked at Polly meditatively. Only that afternoon he had seen this same shy young surgeon stop to gaze from a window that commanded the garden where Polly was gathering sweet pease. He wondered now if it would be wise to send Dr. Abbe to Overlook.
Polly glanced up from her plate to meet her father’s eyes.
“I was thinking—how should you like Dr. Prowitt, instead of Abbe?”
“Oh, father, the children can’t bear him! Little Duke would have a fit, if he were along. Didn’t I tell you what he said? The Doctor had just been in, and Little Duke looked up at me and asked, with a queer expression, ‘You like him, Mi’ Duddy?’
“‘He’s all right,’ I answered. He eyed me closely, and then said,—‘Docker Prow’t is a b-i-g w-i-n-d that comes down the street ’thout any sunshine.’ And you ought to have heard him say it—away down in his throat. No, I couldn’t stand ‘Docker Prow’t’ up at Overlook!”