“I was waiting to learn what you and Langston would say.”
“He will say take it.”
“Then I will be too happy for words. Ruth, you have not only paid the debt, but you have brought me the greatest joy a man ever had. And there is no need to wait the ages I thought I must. He can tell in a year if I can do the work, and I know I can now; so it's all settled, if Langston agrees.”
“He will,” said the Girl. “Let me tell him!”
“I wish you would,” said the doctor. “I don't know just how to go at it.”
Then for two days the Harvester and Belshazzar gathered herbs and spread them on the drying trays. On the afternoon of the third, close three, the doctor came to the door.
“Langston,” he said, “we have a call for you. We can't keep Ruth quiet much longer. She is tired. We want to change her bed completely. She won't allow either of us to lift her. She says we hurt her. Will you come and try it?”
“You'll have to give me time to dip and rub off and get into clean clothing,” he said. “I've been keeping away, because I was working on time, and I smell to strangulation of stramonium and saffron.”
“Can't give you ten seconds,” said the doctor. “Our temper is getting brittle. We are cross as the proverbial fever patient. If you don't come at once we will imagine you don't want to, and refuse to be moved at all.”
“Coming!” cried the Harvester, as he plunged his hands in the wash bowl and soused his face. A second later he appeared on the porch.