f you wuz to ask me.'"

"How did you convince him?"

"I told him the girl would have to have a trained nurse, and would be
sick probably six weeks, and then they couldn't get the poor girl off
their hands quick enough. 'I don't want that girl dyin' round here,'
Sam said."

"Is Mrs. Motherwell as close as he is?" the minister asked after a
pause.

"Some say worse," the doctor replied, "but I don't believe it. She
can't be."

The minister's face was troubled. "I wish I knew what to do for them,"
he said sadly.

"I'll tell you something you can do for me," the doctor said sitting up
straight, "or at least something you may try to do."

"What is it?" the minister asked.

"Devise some method, suggest some course of treatment, whereby my tried
and trusty horse Pleurisy will cease to look so much like a saw-horse.
I'm afraid the Humane Society will get after me."

The minister laughed.

Everybody knew Dr. Clay's horse; there was no danger of mistaking him
for any other. He was tall and lean and gaunt. The doctor had bought
him believing him to be in poor condition, which good food and good
care would remedy. But as the months went by, in spite of all the
doctor could do, Pleurisy remained the same, eating everything the
doctor brought him, and looking for more, but showing no improvement.

"I've tried everything except egg-nog," the doctor went on, "and pink
pills, and I would like to turn over the responsibility to someone
else. I think perhaps his trouble must be mental--some gnawing sorrow
that keeps him awake at night. I don't mind driving Pleurisy where
people know me and know that I do feed him occasionally, but it is
disconcerting when I meet strangers to have kind-looking old ladies
shake their heads at me. I know what they're thinking, and I believe
Pleurisy really enjoys it, and then when I drive past a farmhouse to
see the whole family run out and hold their sides is not a pleasure.
Talk about scattering sunshine! Pleurisy leaves a trail of merriment
wherever he goes."

"What difference does it make what people think when your conscience is
clear. You do feed your horse, you feed him well, so what's the odds,"
inquired the Rev. Hugh Grantley, son of granite, child of the heather,
looking with lifted brows at his friend.

"Oh, there you go!" the doctor said smiling. "That's the shorter
catechism coming out in you--that Scotch complacency is the thing I
wish I had, but I can't help feeling like a rog