“I suppose you know Ralph of old, Annie?” said Mrs. Putney. “The only way he keeps within bounds at all is by letting himself perfectly loose.”
Putney laughed out his acquiescence, and they began to talk together about old times. Mrs. Putney and Annie recalled the childish plays and adventures they had together, and one dreadful quarrel. Putney told of the first time he saw Annie, when his father took him one day for a call on the old judge, and how the old judge put him through his paces in American history, and would not admit the theory that the battle of Bunker's Hill could have been fought on Breed's Hill. Putney said that it was years before it occurred to him that the judge must have been joking: he had always thought he was simply ignorant.
“I used to set a good deal by the battle of Bunker's Hill,” he continued. “I thought the whole Revolution and subsequent history revolved round it, and that it gave us all liberty, equality, and fraternity at a clip. But the Lord always finds some odd jobs to look after next day, and I guess He didn't clear 'em all up at Bunker's Hill.”
Putney's irony and piety were very much of a piece apparently, and Annie was not quite sure which this conclusion was. She glanced at his wife, who seemed satisfied with it in either case. She was waiting patiently for him to wake up to the fact that he had not yet given her anything to eat; after helping Annie and the boy, he helped himself, and pending his wife's pre-occupation with the tea, he forgot her.
“Why didn't you throw something at me,” he roared, in grief and self-reproach. “There wouldn't have been a loose piece of crockery on this side of the table if I hadn't got my tea in time.”
“Oh, I was listening to Annie's share in the conversation,” said Mrs. Putney; and her husband was about to say something in retort of her thrust when a tap on the front door was heard.
“Come in, come in, Doc!” he shouted. “Mrs. Putney's just been helped, and the tea is going to begin.”
Dr. Morrell's chuckle made answer for him, and after time enough to put down his hat, he came in, rubbing his hands and smiling, and making short nods round the table. “How d'ye do, Mrs. Putney? How d'ye do, Miss Kilburn? Winthrop?” He passed his hand over the boy's smooth hair and slipped into the chair beside him.
“You see, the reason why we always wait for the doctor in this formal way,” said Putney, “is that he isn't in here more than seven nights of the week, and he rather stands on his dignity. Hand round the doctor's plate, my son,” he added to the boy, and he took it from Annie, to whom the boy gave it, and began to heap it from the various dishes. “Think you can lift that much back to the doctor, Win?”
“I guess so,” said the boy coolly.