"Never mind," said Nell, sitting up; "it's all over and nobody hurt."
"Nobody hurt!" was the indignant rejoinder. "Maybe you ain't, but I am: I've got an awful headache with the fright, and feel as if I should just die this minute."
A loud hallo from the road without stopped the torrent of words for a space.
"Is Dr. Clendenin here?" shouted a man on horseback, reining in at the gate.
Kenneth stepped quickly to the door.
"What is it?" he asked.
"You're wanted in the greatest kind of a hurry, doctor; over there in the edge o' the woods, where they're felling trees, man crushed; not killed, but bad hurt—very."
Kenneth was in the saddle before the sentence was finished, and the two galloped rapidly away.
"People oughtn't to be so careless," commented Mrs. Barbour, as they all gathered about the door watching the horsemen till they disappeared in a cloud of dust. "Why don't they get out of the way when the tree's going to fall? How quick the doctor went off. He's ready enough to help a man, but wouldn't do anything for poor me!"
"He told you what to do for yourself," said her sister-in-law, a mixture of weariness and contempt in her tones.