"Ah," said the former, with a look of concern; "I am sorry to hear that, my little girl. I know what it is to be sick, and have sick folks about me. What's the matter? has she got the nager too?"
"No, sir," said Bessie, "we don't have that down our way. I don't know what does ail mother. She sort o' wastes away and grows thin and pale."
"Like enough it's the nager," said the farmer; "there is nothing like it for making a body thin and pale."
"That's Bessie's house," cried Nelly, as a sudden turn in the road revealed their two homes, at the foot of the hill, "that white one with the smoke curling out of the left hand chimney."
"And a nice little place it is too," said the farmer. "I pass right by it almost every day, and sometimes in the middle of the night, when all little girls are in their beds and asleep."
Bessie looked at the kind-hearted farmer, and wondered to herself what could bring him so near her home in the nighttime. As her thoughts by this time were pretty well filled with what he called the "nager," she concluded that it must be for the purpose of getting the doctor for himself and his family. The farmer, however, who seemed fond of talking, soon undeceived her.
"You see," he began, "that it is a very long drive from my house to town, say eight miles, at the least, and when I start as I have to-day, about sundown, it takes me, with a heavy load, generally, till half past eight o'clock to get to the market. Well, then I unload, and sell out to a regular customer I have, a man who keeps a stand of all sorts of vegetables, and who generally buys them over night in this way. Then I turn round and come back. It is often eleven o'clock when I reach home and go to bed. Sometimes, again, according to the orders I have from town, Dobbin and I start—"
"Dobbin?" interrupted Bessie, "is Dobbin the horse, sir?"
The farmer nodded smilingly, and continued, "Dobbin and I start at five o'clock in the morning, and we go rattling into market, just in time to have the things hurriedly sorted and in their places, before the buyers begin to throng about the stalls. I stop there a while, but I get home before noon, and Dolly always has my dinner ready to rest me, while Dobbin eats his to rest him."