train. It was a familiar joke in
Clayton that the buggy had a regular track, and that the wheels always
ran in the same rut. Once, when Carter Nelson had taken too much
egg-nog and his aunt thought he had spinal meningitis, the usual route
had been reversed, and again when the blacksmith's triplets were born.
But these were especial occasions. It was a matter for investigation
when the doctor's buggy went over the bridge before noon.

"Anybody sick out this way?" asked the miller.

The doctor stopped the buggy to explain.

He was a short, fat man dressed in a suit of Confederate gray. The
hand that held the reins was minus two fingers, his willing
contribution to the Lost Cause, which was still to him the great
catastrophe of all history. His whole personality was a bristling
arsenal of prejudices. When he spoke it was in quick, short volleys,
in a voice that seemed to come from the depths of a megaphone.

"Strange boy sick at Judge Hollis's. How's trade?"

"Fair to middlin'," answered the miller. "Do you reckon that there boy
has got anything ketchin'?"

"Catching?" repeated the doctor savagely. "What if he has?" he
demanded. "Two epidemics of typhoid, two of yellow fever, and one of
smallpox--that's my record, sir!"

"Looks like my children will ketch a fly-bite," said the miller,
apologetically.

A little farther on the doctor was stopped again--this time by a
maiden in a pink-and-white gingham, with a mass of light curls
bobbing about her face.

"Dad!" she called as she scrambled over the fence. "Where you g-going,
dad?"

The doctor flapped the lines nervously and tried to escape, but she
pursued him madly. Catching up with the buggy, she pulled herself up
on the springs and thrust an impudent, laughing face through the
window at the back.

"Annette," scolded her father, "aren't you ashamed? Fourteen years
old, and a tomboy! Get down!"

"Where you g-going, dad?" she stammered, unabashed.

"To Judge Hollis's. Get down this minute!"

"What for?"

"Somebody's sick. Get down, I say!"

Instead of getting down, she got in, coming straight through the small
window, and arriving in a tangle of pink and white at his side.

The doctor heaved a prodigious sigh. As a colonel of the Confederacy
he had exacted strict discipline and unquestioning obedience, but he
now found himself ignominiously reduced to the ranks, and another
Fenton in command.

At Hollis Farm the judge met them at the gate. He was larg