octor Schulze is right," Arthur was saying to his mother, with an
attempt at a smile. But he was glad of the softness and ease of the big
divan in the back parlor, of the sense of hovering and protecting love he
got from his mother's and Adelaide's anxious faces. Sorer than the really
trifling wound was the deep cut into his vanity. How his fellow-workmen
were pitying him!--a poor blockhead of a bungler who had thus brought to
a pitiful climax his failure to learn a simple trade. And how the whole
town would talk and laugh! "Hiram Ranger, he begat a fool!"

Schulze, with proper equipment, redressed and rebandaged the wound, and
left, after cautioning the young man not to move the sick arm. "You'll
be all right to strum the guitar and sport a diamond ring in a fortnight
at the outside," said he. At the door he lectured Adelaide: "For God's
sake, Miss Ranger, don't let his mother coddle him. He's got the makings
of a man like his father--not as big, perhaps, but still a lot of a man.
Give him a chance! Give him a chance! If this had happened in a football
game or a fox-hunt, nobody would have thought anything of it. But just
because it was done at useful work, you've got yourself all fixed to make
a fearful to-do."

How absurdly does practice limp along, far behind firm-striding theory!
Schulze came twice that day, looked in twice the next day, and fussed
like a disturbed setting-hen when his patient forestalled the next day's
visit by appearing at his office for treatment. "I want to see if I
can't heal that cut without a scar," was his explanation--but it was a
mere excuse.

When Arthur called on the fifth day, Schulze's elder daughter, Madelene,
opened the door. "Will you please tell the doctor," said he, "that the
workman who cut his finger at the cooperage wishes to see him?"

Madelene's dark gray eyes twinkled. She was a tall and, so he thought,
rather severe-looking young woman; her jet black hair was simply, yet not
without a suspicion of coquetry, drawn back over her ears from a central
part--or what would have been a part had her hair been less thick. She
was studying medicine under her father. It was the first time he had seen
her, it so happened, since she was in knee dresses at public school. As
he looked he thought: "A splendid advertisement for the old man's
business." Just why she seemed so much healthier than even the
healthiest, he found it hard to understand. She was neither robust nor
radiant. Perha