Christianna rose, pulling her sunbonnet over her eyes. "Thank you, Mrs. Cole an' Mr. Cole. I thought I'd like to hear. Now I'll be going back up the mountain. Violetta an' Rosalinda are pulling fodder and mother is ploughing for wheat. I do the spinning mostly. You've got lovely china asters, Mrs. Cole. They have a flower they called magnolia down 't Richmond—like a great sweet white cup, an' they had pink crape myrtles. I liked it in Richmond, for all the death an' mourning. Thunder Run's so far away. Good mahnin', Mrs. Cole. Good mahnin', Mr. Cole."
The slight homespun figure disappeared around the bend of the road. Sairy sewed in silence. Tom went back to the newspaper. The yellow cat slept on, the bees buzzed and droned, the sweet mountain air brushed through the trees, a robin sang. Half an hour passed. Tom raised his head. "I hear some one coming!" He reached for the tobacco box.
It proved to be an old well-loved country doctor, on a white horse, with his saddle bags before him. Sairy hurried out, too, to the gate. "Doctor, I want to ask you something about Tom—" "Psha, I'm all right," said Tom. "Won't you get down and set a little, doctor?"
The doctor would and did, and after he had prescribed for the tollgate keeper a two hours' nap every day and not to get too excited over war news, Tom read him Allan's letter, and they got into a hot discussion of the next battle. Sairy turned the drying apples, brushed away the bees, and brought fresh water from the well, then sat down again with her mending. "Doctor, how's the girl at Three Oaks?"
The doctor came back from Maryland to his own county and to the fold which he tended without sleep, without rest, and with little pay save in loving hearts. "Miriam Cleave? She's better, Mrs. Cole, she's better!"
"I'm mighty glad to hear it," said Sairy. "'T ain't a decline, then?"
"No, no! Just shock on shock coming to a delicate child. Her mother will bring her through. And there's a great woman."
"That's so, that's so!" assented Tom cordially. "A great woman."
Sairy nodded, drawing her thread across a bit of beeswax. "For once you are both right. He isn't there now, doctor?"