"'Why,' I says, 'I heard Eph was in bed. What's the matter with him?' And I went right in, past his mother, like I was a born guest. She drew off, sort of grudging—she never liked any of us to go there, except when some of them died, which they was always doing. 'Come in and see Eph, Mr. Insley,' I says, and introduced him.
"The little boy wasn't above eight years old and he wasn't above six years big.... He was laying real still, with his arms out of bed, and his little thin hands flat down on the dark covers. His eyes, looking up at us, watching, made me think of some trapped thing.
"'Well, little brother,' says Insley, 'what's the trouble?'
"Mis' Cadoza come and stood at the foot of the bed and jerked at the top covers.
"'I've put him in the bed,' she says, 'because I'm wore out lifting him around. An' I've got the bed out here because I can't trapse back an' forth waitin' on him.'
"'Is he a cripple?' asks Insley, low. I liked so much to hear his voice—it was as if it lifted and lowered itself in his throat without his bothering to tell it which kind it was time to do. And I never heard his voice make a mistake.
"'Cripple?' says Mis' Cadoza, in her kind of undressed voice. 'No. He fell in a tub of hot water years ago, and his left leg is witherin' up.'
"'Let me see it,' says Insley, and pulled the covers back without waiting.
"There ain't nothing more wonderful than a strong, capable, quick human hand doing something it knows how to do. Insley's hands touched over the poor little leg of the child until I expected to see it get well right there under his fingers. He felt the cords of the knee and then looked up at the mother.