as packing his little satchel with all
that would be needed.

"Now pick him up and take him," she said firmly to big John. "He'll be
all right when he sees your little boy, never mind what he says now."

Big John seized the doctor and bore him struggling and protesting to
the wagon.

The doctor made an effort to get out.

"Put him down in the bottom with this under his head"--handing Big John
a cushion--"and put your feet on him," Mary commanded.

Big John did as she bid him, none too gently, for he could still hear
his little boy's cries and see that cruel jagged wound.

"Oh, don't hurt him," she cried piteously, and ran sobbing into the
house. Upstairs, in what had been her mother's room, she pressed her
face against her mother's kimono that still hung behind the door. "I am
not crying for you to come back, mother," she sobbed bitterly, "I am
just crying for your little girl."

The doctor was asleep when John reached his little shanty in the hills.
The child still lived, his Highland mother having stopped the blood
with rude bandaging and ashes, a remedy learned in her far-off island
home.

John shook the doctor roughly and cursed him soundly in both English
and Gaelic, without avail, but the child's cry so full of pain and
weakness roused him with a start. In a minute Dr. Frederick Barner was
himself. He took the child gently from his mother and laid him on the
bed.

For two days the doctor stayed in John's dirty little shanty, caring
for little Murdock as tenderly as a mother. He cooked for the child, he
sang to him, he carried him in his arms for hours, and soothed him with
a hundred quaint fancies. He superintended the cleaning of the house
and scolded John's wife soundly on her shiftless ways; he showed her
how to bake bread and cook little dishes to tempt the child's appetite,
winning thereby her undying gratitude. She understood but little of the
scolding, but she saw his kindness to her little boy, for kindness is
the same in all languages.

On the third day, the little fellow's fever went down and, peeping over
the doctor's shoulder, he smiled and chattered and asked for his
"daddy" and his "mathar."

Then Big John broke down utterly and tried to speak his gratitude, but
the doctor abruptly told him to quit his blubbering and hitch up, for
little Murdock would be chasing the hens again in a week or two.

The doctor went faithfully every day and dressed little Murdock's wound
until it no longer