Dr. Lavendar looked down at the bowl of his pipe then he said meekly, "I was under the impression that Eve ate her apple before Adam had so much as a bite. Still, whether Mrs. Richie knows the state of Sam's affections or not, I do wish she would urge him to put his mind on his work. That's what I came in to speak to you about. His father is all on edge about it, and now his grandfather has taken it into his head to be worried over it, too But you know her better than the rest of us do, and I thought perhaps you'd drop a hint that she would be doing missionary work if she'd influence the boy to be more industrious."
"I'll go and talk it over with her," Martha volunteered. "I am always ready to advise any one."
William King got up and kicked at a lump of coal in the grate. "I am sure you are," he said dryly; "but no talking over is necessary., I shall probably be going up the hill in a few days, and I'll say a word if Dr. Lavendar wants me to. Nothing definite; just enlist her sympathy for his father—and get her to protect herself, too. He must be an awful nuisance."
"That's it!" said Dr. Lavendar. "I'd do it myself, but you know her better than I do. I'm getting acquainted with her through David. David is really a remarkable child! I can't tell you how I miss him." And then he began to relate David's sayings, while Martha sewed fiercely, and William stared at the hearth-rug "The little rascal is no Peter Grievous," Dr Lavendar declared, proudly; and told a story of a badly barked knee, and a very stiff upper-lip; "and the questions he asks!" said the old man, holding up both hands; "theological questions; the House of Bishops couldn't answer 'em!" He repeated some of the questions, watching the husband and wife with swift glances over his spectacles; when he had wrung a reluctant laugh from the doctor, and Mrs., King was not sewing so fast, he went home, not much rested by his call.
But the result of the call was that at the end of the week Dr. King went up to the Stuffed Animal House.
"We are shipwrecked!" cried Mrs. Richie, as she saw him coming down the garden path towards the barn. Her face was flushed and gay, and her hair, shaken from its shining wreath around her head, hung in two braids down her back. She had had a swing put up under the big buttonwood beside the stable, and David, climbing into it, had clung to the rigging to be dashed, side wise, on to the rocks of the carriageway, where Mrs. Richie stood ready to catch him when the vessel should drive near enough to the shore. In an endeavor to save himself from some engulfing sea which his playmate had pointed out to him, David had clutched at her, breaking the top hook of her gown and tearing her collar apart, leaving throat, white and round, open to the hot sun. Before the doctor reached her, she caught her dress together, and twisted her hair into a knot. "You can't keep things smooth in a shipwreck," she excused herself, laughing.
David sighed, and looked into the carriage-house. In that jungle—Mrs. Richie had called it a jungle—were wild beasts; there were also crackers and apples—or to be exact, breadfruit and citrons—hanging from what George called "harness-racks," though of course, as thoughtful persons know, they were trees; David was to gather these tropical spoils, and then escape from the leopard, the shark, the crocodile! And now there was Dr. King, spoiling everything.
The doctor sat down on a keg and looked at the two, smiling. "Which is the younger of you?" he said. It came over him, in a gust of amusement, what Martha would say to such a scene, and he laughed aloud.
"Dr. King," said David, in a small distinct voice, "won't Jinny run away, if you leave her so long at gate?"
"Oh, David!" cried Mrs. Richie, horrified. But the visitor threw back his head with a shout.