"No," laughed Allan.
"No mortar piled up on me and left to set? No striped nurses?"
"No plaster cast," Allan assured her, "and no striped nurses."
"I reckon it ain't none of my business," remarked Miss Mattie, "but why didn't you do somethin' like this for Barbara instead of cuttin' her up? I'm worse off than she ever was, because she could walk right spry with crutches, and crutches wouldn't have helped me none when I was risin' up from the bureau drawer."
"Barbara's case is different. She had a congenital dislocation of the femur."
Miss Mattie's jaw dropped, but she quickly recovered herself. "And what have I got?"
"Lumbago."
"My disease is shorter," she commented, after a moment of reflection, "but I'll bet it feels worse."
"I'll ask your son to come in if I see him," said Doctor Conrad, reaching for his hat, "and if you don't get well immediately, let me know. Good-bye."
Roger was nowhere in sight, but he was watching the two houses, and as soon as he saw Doctor Conrad go into North's, he went back to his mother.