Downstairs she found Sam.
"You see, Dr. Driggs was off somewheres, up the mountain, and no one could find him," he explained. "I couldn't make out to get him, the best I could do. Then I asked wasn't there some other doctor in the place, but short of Burbank, twenty-five miles off, there wasn't. Dr. Driggs has all the practice 'round these parts. Then, all at once, somebody happened to think of a young fellow from Boston, here for his health—same as I, I guess. He's a M.D. all right—laid up for repairs, as you might say. He's boarding at the Fred Trenholm's. A wink's as good as a nod to a blind horse, and off I went to Milby's Corners. At first, Dr. Ballard—that's his name—said he didn't know about coming. But, after a bit, he decided he would. He's a fine, outstepping young gentleman, as ever you saw. You'd never think his lung had a spot in it, more's the pity."
"Neither would you think yours has," Martha rejoined simply.
Sam searched her face for a moment. "Say, you're not worrying about me, are you, mother?" he put to her gently.
Mrs. Slawson turned to fill her scrubbing pail with hot water from one of the kettles on the stove.
"Worryin' about you? Sure I'm not. What'd I be worryin' about you for? You're chesty enough, ain't you, goodness knows. An' your cough has almost went. I like sleepin' outdoors nights. The wide, wide world ain't too big a bedroom for me. An' this air certaintly is more healthy for the childern, than down home—I should say, New York."
"Only—you kind of miss the old town, eh, mother?"
Martha scrubbed away in silence for a moment. "Well, not as you might say miss. Certaintly not. But I guess I'd find it hard work to live in any place else, so long as I lived in New York (havin' been born there), an', that bein' the case, a body thinks back to it oncet in a while—which, of course, thinkin' is by no means missin'."
Sam considered. "How'd you like to take a day off, and go down with me, after Mr. Ronald gets back? There's some things he wants me to see about, I'll have to look into myself in the city, and you might as well come along. We'll leave the children with Ma, and just go off on a spree—us two."
Martha sat back on her heels, and looked up at her husband out of a face that glowed.