"Medicine!" Gramps said. "You pill peddlers can't think of anything else when you don't know what to do."
"He'll take the medicine, Doctor," Gram promised.
Dr. Beardsley said, "I leave you in care of your boss, Delbert," and went out into the night.
That had been that; hunting Old Yellowfoot was over for the season. Gramps grumbled and growled, but he took his medicine and accepted his three hours of daily rest. Bud shouldered as many of the chores as he could.
Then the school bus stopped, and as Bud trudged up the drive, he told himself sullenly that at least he was beholden to nobody for he had paid his way. But in his heart he knew it wasn't as simple as that, and that he would gladly work as many hours a day as he could stay awake to help Gram and Gramps.
For the past week the kitchen had been a heaven of tantalizing odors. Bushels of cookies and rows of fruit cakes had emerged from the great oven. Gram and Helen Carruthers had been busy from daylight until after dark. Gram was taking another tray of cookies from the oven when Bud came in and she smiled at him. Helen Carruthers, a tall, graying woman who seldom smiled, was mixing something in a pan. She nodded at Bud and told him to help himself.
Bud grabbed a handful of cookies and went to his room to change his clothes. As he went out to the barn, Shep came running to meet him and inside he found Gramps sitting on a bale of hay. The barn had become Gramps' refuge. The old man nodded glumly.
"Dogged if I know how she does it," Gramps said plaintively. "I'm supposed to take that stuff Doc Beardsley gave me, and it's a wonder it don't kill a body, every four hours. So every four hours, no matter how busy she is, Mother's right on deck with it. Pah! A man can't be himself any more."
"You should have your medicine, Gramps."
"Medicine, yes, but that ain't any medicine. Now you take sassafras root and slippery elm bark; that was medicine when they was boiled together by somebody who knew what he was doing." Gramps fell into a glum silence. Then he said, "Anyhow, they didn't get Old Yellowfoot."