“That's a half more than being a woman, anyway.”
“She called you feminine, did she?” cried the doctor, dancing and laughing. “She ought to see you harvesting skunk cabbage and blue flag or when you are angry enough.”
The doctor left the room and it was a half hour before he returned.
“Try that on them according to directions,” he said, handing over a couple of bottles.
“Thank you!” said the Harvester, “I will!”
“That sounds manly enough.”
“Oh pother! It's not that I'm not a man, or a laggard in love; but I'd like to know what you'd do to a girl dumb with grief over the recent loss of her mother, who was her only relative worth counting, sick from God knows what exposure and privation, and now a dying relative on her hands. What could you do?”
“I'd marry her and pick her out of it!”
“I wouldn't have her, if she'd leave a sick woman for me!”
“I wouldn't either. She's got to stick it out until her aunt grows better, and then I'll go out there and show you how to court a girl.”