, and playing with them a while as he talked,
finally handed back the dollar to the farmer.

"You take that," he said pleasantly, "and go down to the drug-store and
have the prescription filled. I think your wife will be all right."

When he had gone the doctor sat there a long time, meditatively puffing
the smoke from his cob pipe, and turning his own dollar in his hand.
After a time he looked up at his daughter, who was present, and said:

"I was just thinking what a short time it took me to write that
prescription, and what a long time it took him to earn that dollar. I
guess he needs the dollar more than I do."

In the same spirit of this generosity he was once sitting in his yard of
a summer day, sunning himself and smoking, a favorite pleasure of his,
when two men rode up to his gate from opposite directions and
simultaneously hailed him. He arose and went out to meet them. His wife,
who was sewing just inside the hall as she usually was when her husband
was outside, leaned forward in her chair to see through the door, and
took note of who they were. Both were men in whose families the doctor
had practiced for years. One was a prosperous farmer who always paid his
"doctor's bills," and the other was a miller, a "ne'er-do-well," with a
delicate wife and a family of sickly children, who never asked for a
statement and never had one sent him, and who only occasionally and at
great intervals handed the doctor a dollar in payment for his many
services. Both men talked to him a little while and then rode away,
after which he returned to the house, calling to Enoch, his old negro
servant, to bring his horse, and then went into his study to prepare his
medicine case. Mrs. Gridley, who was naturally interested in his
financial welfare, and who at times had to plead with him not to let his
generosity stand wholly in the way of his judgment, inquired of him as
he came out:

"Now, Doctor, which of those two men are you going with?"

"Why, Miss Susan," he replied--a favorite manner of addressing his wife,
of whom he was very fond--the note of apology in his voice showing that
he knew very well what she was thinking about, "I'm going with W----."

"I don't think that is right," she replied with mild emphasis. "Mr.
N---- is as good a friend of yours as W----, and he always pays you."

"Now, Miss Susan," he returned coaxingly, "N---- can go to Pierceton and
get Doctor Bodine, and W---- can't get any one but me. You surely