"Tell Aunt Doris I'm going for a long walk and not to worry if I'm not home for luncheon."
Jed repeated this message over and over aloud. He fumbled it, corrected it, and then finally gripped it long enough to speak the words automatically to Doris and Doctor Martin.
"That old fellow," Martin said, looking keenly after him, "is going to go all to pieces some day like the one-hoss shay. He looks about a hundred. I wonder how old he is?"
Doris smiled.
"I imagine," she said, "that he is not as old as he looks. He told me that his grandfather was married in short trousers and never lived to get in long ones. They begin life so early and just shuffle through it."
"You find that thing in the South more than anywhere else." Martin was nodding understandingly. "It's like a dream—more like looking at life than living it. I suppose when they die they wake up and stretch and have a laugh at what they feared and passed through in their sleep."
"We will all do that, more or less, Davey."
"More or less—yes!" Then suddenly:
"Doris, I think you can plan on three months in New York next winter. My boy is coming on from the West. I'm going to take my shingle down and hang his up."
"Really, David? Take yours down?" Doris looked dubious.