"He can. But I think we can stop the bleeding without bothering Uncle Peter any more. I'd like a pair of scissors," he said, meaning to cut some papers for powders.

"They won't do no good. I've tried 'em."

"What do you think I want with them?"

"I 'lowed you wanted to put 'em under the piller. That'll cure nose-bleed lots of times. Maybe you don't believe it, but it's so."

"Can Uncle Peter cure other things?" asked Mary.

"He can _that_. My nephew had the chills last year and shook and shook.

At last he went to Uncle Peter an' he cured _him_."

"He shot 'em," said Mr. Haig.

"Yes, he told him to take sixteen shot every mornin' for sixteen days and by the time he got through he didn't shake a bit."

"By jings! he was so heavy he couldn't," said Mr. Haig, and in the laugh that followed the doctor and his wife rose to go. A neighboring woman with a baby in her arms had come in and seated herself near the door. As he pa.s.sed out the doctor stopped to inquire, "How's that sore breast?

You haven't been back again."

"It's about well. William found a mole at last and when I put the skin of it on my breast it cured it. I knowed it would, but when we wanted a mole there wasn't none to be found, so I had to go and see _you_ about it."

"I thought it would soon be well. Good for the mole-skin," laughed the doctor, as they took their leave.

When they had started homeward they looked at each other, the doctor with a smile in his eyes--he had encountered this sort of thing so often in his professional life that he was quite accustomed to it. But Mary's brown eyes were serious. "John," she said, "when will the reign of ignorance and superst.i.tion end?"

"When Time shall be no more, my dear."

"So it seems. Those people, while lacking education, seem to be fairly intelligent and yet their lives are dominated by things like these."

"Yes, and not only people of fair intelligence but of fair education too. While they would laugh at what we saw and heard back there they are holding fast to things equally senseless and ridiculous. Then there are thoroughly educated and cultured people holding fast to little superst.i.tions which had their birth in ignorance away back in the past somewhere. How many people do you know who want to see the new moon over the left shoulder? And didn't I hear you commanding Jack just the other day to take the hoe right out of the house and to go out the same door he came in?"

"O, ye-es, but then _n.o.body_ wants to have a _hoe_ carried through the house, John. It's such a bad sign--"

The doctor laughed. "This thing is so widespread there seems to be no hope of eliminating it entirely though I believe physicians are doing more than anybody else toward crushing it out."

"Can they reason and argue people out of these things?"

"Not often. Good-natured ridicule is an effective shaft and one I like to turn upon them sometimes. They get so they don't want to say those things to me, and so perhaps they get to see after a while that it is just as well not to say them too often to other people, too."

"Don't drive so fast, John, the day is too glorious."

Yellow b.u.t.terflies flitted hither and thither down the road; the corn in the fields was turning brown and out from among it peeped here and there a pumpkin; the trees in apple orchards were bending low with their rosy and golden treasures. They pa.s.sed a pool of water and saw reflected there the purple asters blooming above it. By and by the doctor turned down a gra.s.sy road leading up to a farmhouse a short distance away. "Are you to make another call today?" asked his wife.

"Yes, there is a very sick child here."

When he had gone inside three or four children came out. A curly-headed little girl edged close and looked up into Mary's face.

"Miss' Blank, _you_ know where Mr. Blank got our baby, _don't_ you?"

Mary, smiling down at the little questioner, said, "The doctor didn't tell me anything about it." The little faces looked surprised and disappointed.

"We thought you'd know an' we come out to ask you," said another little girl. "You make all the babies' dresses, don't you?"

"Dear me, no indeed!" laughed the doctor's wife.

"Does he keep all the babies at your house?" asked the little boy.

"I think not. I never see them there."

"Didn't he ever bring any to your house?"

"Oh, yes, five of them."

"I'd watch and see where he _gets_ 'em," said the little fellow stoutly.

"Jimmie Brown said Mr. Blank found their baby down in the woods in an old holler log."

The doctor came out, and the little boy looking up at him asked, "Is they any more babies down in the woods?"

"Yes, yes, 'the woods is full of 'em,'" laughed the doctor as he drove off leaving the little group quite unsatisfied.

When they had gone some distance two wagons appeared on the brow of the hill in front of them. "Hold on, Doctor," shouted the first driver, as the doctor was driving rapidly by, "I want to sell you a watermelon."

"Will you take your pay in pills?"

"Don't b'lieve I have any use for pills."

"Don't want one then, I'm broke this morning," and he pa.s.sed the second wagon and pulled his horse into the road again.

"Wait a minute! _I'll_ trade you a melon for some pills," called the driver. He spread the reins over the dashboard and clambered down; the man in front looked back at him with a grin. "I've got two kinds here, the Cyclone and the Monarch, which would you rather have?"

"Oh, I don't care," said the doctor.

"Let us have a Monarch, please," said Mary. Monarch was a prettier name than Cyclone, and besides there was no sense in giving so violent a name to so peaceful a thing as a watermelon. So the Monarch was brought and deposited in the back of the buggy.

The doctor opened his case. "Take your choice."

"What do you call this kind?"

"I call that kind Little Devils."

"How many of 'em would a feller dare take at once?"

"Well, I wouldn't take more than three unless you have a lawyer handy to make your will."

"Why, will they hurt me?"

"They'll bring the answer if you take enough of 'em."

The man eyed the pills dubiously,--"I believe I'll let that kind alone.