The girl was divided between horror and pity. At the door she turned.
“I am not afraid. Let me stay, father,—I must stay!”
“No; it is useless, and might be worse than useless.” As she obeyed him, a short, squat figure of a man coming into the doorway darkened the dimly lit room. He moved aside as Rose went out into the sun. Lyndsay went by him also, and the man, turning back, said, “It’s about all over, I guess. We’ve got more’n we can handle, sir. Seems there’s no end of troubles.”
“Come this way,” returned Lyndsay. “And you, Rose, wait by the fence.”
He saw but too clearly that the stout, ruddy little man had been taking whisky. Joe Colkett followed him.
“Good Lord, my man, that child is dying,—will be dead, I am sure, before night; and here you are in liquor just when that poor woman most wants help.”
“I ain’t that drunk I can’t do chores. Fact is, Mr. Lyndsay, I went down to ask Dory Maybrook jus’ to lend me a little money. That doctor he took most all my wood wage.”[[2]]
[2]. Money earned by lumbering in the winter woods.