"Well, we'll see what Doc Stone has to say about it," Henley retorted. "He's authority, an' you hain't."
Pitman had no reply ready. They heard the gate open and close, and then on the still air came the gentle voice of Dixie speaking from the attic window. "Come right in, Doctor, and up the ladder. Be careful and don't stumble. I'll hold the candle for you."
Pitman sullenly turned away. Henley watched him as he went into the stall of a stable and struck a match to light his pipe. Leaving him, Henley went back to the farm-house and sat down on the steps of the porch. The light from the attic window lay on the lush green grass before him, and he kept his eyes upon it. There was a tread on the floor behind him as soft as that of a cat. It was Mrs. Pitman in her bare feet. She held her tattered shoes in her hand. She touched him on the shoulder.
"I hope you an' Sam didn't—come to licks," she whispered.
"No, he's all right," was the gentle reply. "I had to talk sharp, Mrs. Pitman, an' I'm sorry it was here at his own house."
"Well, I'm glad the doctor come," she conceded, slowly. "I was afeard to put in while Sam was talkin'. He gits madder at me 'n he does to all the rest combined. I'm sort o' feard the boy is bad off, myself."
"Yes, he's bad off," Henley nodded, grimly. "If it was a light case Doc Stone would have been down before this. You may depend on it, it's serious."
Muttering inarticulately, the woman crept away. Henley remained bent forward, his eyes on the shifting shadows before him. He looked at his watch; two hours had passed. The closing of a rear door and the resounding tread of a pair of hobnailed boots on the lower floor told him that Pitman had entered the house and was going to bed. He saw Dixie's shadow in its frame on the grass, and went out to the fence and looked up. She was there, and she leaned over the little sill and nodded. "I only wanted to know if you was still there," she said, in a low tone. "Joe—" But the doctor evidently had called her, for she looked back into the room and vanished. Henley saw two shadows bending forward, and he strode back and forth along the fence, a fierce suspense clutching his heart. Presently the doctor, a middle-aged, full-bearded man, with a gentle manner, crept down the ladder and walked softly across the porch. Henley joined him at his buggy in the road.
"How is he, Doc?" he inquired, his fears deepened by the physician's silence, as he stood between the wheels of the buggy and fumbled with the reins wrapped around the whip-holder.
"Awful, awful!" Stone said, grimly. "Not one chance in five hundred. Malignant pneumonia. Neglected case. I've left medicine and instructions. I can't stay—would if I could—case of child-labor down the road—nobody else to attend to it. I'll be back before morning. That will be the crisis. He's in splendid hands; a trained nurse couldn't be better."