"Maybe because I like your company and you have been gone all day."
Only later had it occurred to Bud that she was deliberately resorting to subterfuge to make him sit still until Dr. Beardsley arrived. Gramps would never have accepted a doctor otherwise. As it was, he gave an outraged growl when Dr. Beardsley finally came.
"What the blazes do you want?" Gramps grumbled.
Dr. Beardsley said calmly, "To see you, Delbert, and I don't have all night. Open your shirt."
Dr. Beardsley had hung out his shingle in Haleyville when he was twenty-two. He was seventy-two now, and there was little in his half century of practice that he hadn't dealt with. He had learned long ago that he would be obeyed if he expected obedience and tolerated nothing else.
"While you're about it," the doctor said, "roll up your sleeve."
Grumbling, Gramps did as he was told. Dr. Beardsley took his blood pressure and thrust a thermometer between Gramps' lips. When Gramps made a face, he said,
"That's a thermometer, Delbert, not a stick of peppermint. Don't try to bite it in half."
While Gramps mouthed the thermometer, Dr. Beardsley applied a stethoscope to his chest, then to his back. He removed the thermometer and, after he read it, he washed it at the sink and dipped it in a sterile tube before putting it back in its case.
"I suppose you were hunting today?" he asked Gramps.