“Don't know. I'm goin' for the doctor, and the sooner we git that doctor the better for everybody around.” And Sam disappeared in a whirl of dust.
“Say! Who would a thought it?” he mused. “That Mandy Haley? She's a terror. And them eyes! Oh, git on, Deck, what you monkeyin' about? Wonder if she's gone on that young feller? I guess she is all right! Say, wasn't that a clout he handed Perkins. And didn't she give me one. But them eyes! Mandy Haley! By the jumpin' Jeremiah! And the way she looks at a feller! Here, Deck, what you foolin' about? Gwan now, or you'll git into trouble.”
Deck, who had been indulging himself in a series of leaps and plunges, shying at even the most familiar objects by the road side, settled down at length to a businesslike trot which brought him to the doctor's door in about fifteen minutes from the Haleys' gate. But to Sam's dismay the doctor had gone to Cramm's Mill, six or seven miles away, and would not be back till the morning. Sam was in a quandary. There was another doctor at Brookfield, five miles further on, but there was a possibility that he also might be out.
“Say, there ain't no use goin' back without a doctor. She'd—she'd—Jumpin' Jeremiah! What would she do? Say, Deck, you've got to git down to business. We're goin' to the city. There are doctors there thick as hair on a dog. We'll try Dr. Turnbull. Say, it'll be great if we could git him! Deck, we'll do it! But you got to git up and dust.”
And this Deck proceeded to do to such good purpose that in about an hour's time he stood before Dr. Turnbull's door in the city, somewhat wet, it is true, but with his fiery spirit still untamed.
Here again adverse fate met the unfortunate Sam.
“Doctor Turnbull's no at home,” said the maid, smart with cap and apron, who opened the door.
“How long will he be gone?” enquired Sam, wondering what she had on her head, and why.
“There's no tellin'. An hour, or two hours, or three.”
“Three hours?” echoed Sam. “Say, a feller might kick the bucket in that time.”