But now neighbors began to hurry to them. Children, of course,
for Knight Street was well supplied with them. But Mrs. Arlo
Weeks and Mrs. Peckinpaw came from across the street, while Miss
Peckham appeared from her cottage.
"Dear me! Was he picked up that way?" asked Mrs. Weeks, in her high, strident tone. "My Arlo had a fit once—"
"Tain't a fit," said Mrs. Peckinpaw, who was a very old woman and who never spoke to Miss Peckham because of some neighborhood squabble which had happened so long before that neither of them remembered what it was about.
"Tain't a fit," she said acidly; "for then they foam at the mouth, or drool. I never knew he had anything the matter with him, chronic."
The jolly looking man laughed. Miss Peckham on the other side of the stretcher, and without looking at the other women, asked:
"Oughtn't he be took to the hospital? There's nobody here to take care of him but that fly-away young one."
"I won't have him taken to a hospital!" cried Janice stormily.
"You bring him right into the house—"
"Well, 'tain't fittin'," said Miss Peckham decidedly.
"I guess both Mr. Day and his daughter know what they want," said the cheerful looking man, decidedly. "He wanted to be brought home. Now, my little lady, where shall we put him? All ready, Bill?"
"All ready," said Bill, who had the handles at the head of the stretcher.