“Oh, I won’t say a word more,” Jim declared.
“More Ananias magnificence! Do you suppose the Aydelots will be down before we go away?” the doctor asked.
“We?”
“Yes, I am going to take you with me, or give you a quieting powder when I leave here. On your own declaration you’d do anything to get back to strength and work. Now, the only way to get well, with or without a physician, is to get well. And you’ll never do that by using up a little more strength every day than you store up the night before. Men haven’t sense enough to be invalids. Nothing else is such a menace to human life as the will of the man who owns that life. You’ll obey my will for a month or two.”
“You are a—doctor, Carey. No, the Aydelots won’t be down before we go away, because Virginia has been sick ever since that awful trip to Carey’s Crossing,” Jim said sadly. 84
“Why haven’t you told me?” Carey’s voice was hardly audible.
“Because Asher just told me today, and because you took no interest in them.”
“Sickness is a doctor’s interest, always,” Carey replied in a stern voice. And then the two sat in silence while the night shadows darkened the little cabin.
As soon as Shirley was able to ride, he went up to Carey’s Crossing for a two months’ stay, and the Aydelots were left far away from the edge of civilization. A heavy snowfall buried all the trails and the world, the happy, busy world, forgot these two holding their claim on the grim wilderness frontier.