This was a new idea.

"Why--so I might! Does Mrs. Hallard who raises chickens or Miss What's-her-name who cures ham, keep boarders?"

"Nope. But they're not the only oysters in the soup--There's the bell!

They never give a man a minute's peace. Say, if you don't really like that pie, don't waste it--see? Tell you about boarding-houses later."

Callandar had to clear the table himself. This he did by the simple expedient of putting everything on top of everything else. But he did not waste anything, a precaution whose value he realised that night upon returning from the dining room where he had spent some time in looking at that repast known to the Imperial as supper. Bubble, the bell boy, found him with his mind made up.

"Boy," he said, "you have saved my life. But I fear I can sojourn no longer in your delightful town. Find me the first train out in the morning.".

The boy's face fell.

"Ain't you going to stay? Why, it's all over town that you're the new doctor come to take old Doc. Simmonds's practice. Mournful Mark, that you drove up with, told it. He said he shouldn't wonder if you're real clever. Says he suspects you're an old friend of Doc. Coombe's folks--went to college with the doctor, mebby. Says that likely Alviry will have you next time she gets a stroke."

"Tempting as the prospect is, boy, I fear ..."

"Oh, dang it! There's the bell again."

He darted out, b.u.mped down the sounding stairs and, while the doctor was still considering the words of his ultimatum, appeared again at the door, this time decorously on duty.

"A call for you, sir," said Bubble primly.

"A--what?"

"A call, sir. Mrs. Sykes wants to know if the new doctor will call 'round first thing in the morning to see Mrs. Sykes's Ann. She dunno, but she thinks it's smallpox."

"Quit your fooling, boy."

"Cross my heart, doctor!"

"Smallpox?"

"Oh!" cheerfully, "I don't cross my heart to that. Mrs. Sykes always thinks things is smallpox. Ann's had smallpox several times now. But the rest is on the level. What message, sir?"

Callandar hesitated. (And while he hesitated the Fateful Sisters manipulated a great many threads very swiftly.) "What train ..." he began. (The Fateful Sisters slipped a bobbin through and tied a cunning knot.) Without knowing why, Callandar decided to stay. He laughed.

Bubble stood eagerly expectant.

"Tell Mrs. Sykes I'll come, and ..." but Bubble did not wait for the end of the message.

CHAPTER IV

Coombe is a pretty place. It has broad streets, quiet and tree-lined. It has sunny, empty lots where children play. No one is crowded or shut in.

The houses stand in their own green lawns, and are comfortable and even picturesque. The Swiss chalet style has not yet come to Coombe, so the architecture, though plain, is not productive of nightmare. The roads are like country roads, soft and yellowish; green gra.s.s grows along the sides of many of them, and board sidewalks are still to be found, springy and easy to the tread. There is a main street with macadamised roadway and stone pavements, real flat stone, for they were laid before the appearance of the all-conquering cement. There is a postoffice with a tower and a clock, a courthouse with a fountain and a cannon, a park with a bandstand and a baseball diamond, a townhall with a belfry and no bell, an exhaustive array of churches, the Imperial Hotel, and the market. We mention the market last (as we were taught at school) because on account of its importance it ought to come first.

When Dr. Callandar, having been efficiently valeted by Bubble, set out to pay his first professional call, he drew in deep breaths of the pleasant air with a feeling of well-being to which he had long been a stranger. He had slept. In spite of the room, in spite of the chocolate cake, in spite of the pie, he had slept. And that alone was enough to make the whole world over. It was still hot but with a heat different from the heat of yesterday. A little shower had fallen during the night.

There was a sense of the north in the air, a light freshness, very invigorating. He liked the quiet shaded streets; the cannon by the courthouse amused him; the number of church steeples left him amazed. He felt as if he had stumbled into a dream-town and must walk carefully lest he stumble out.

Bubble had given him very complete directions, indeed so minute were they that we will omit them lest some day you find the way yourself and drop in on Mrs. Sykes when she is not expecting company. But Dr.

Callandar in his amused absorption had forgotten that he was going to Mrs. Sykes at all, when he was recalled to a sense of duty by a sharp hail from the corner house of a street he had just pa.s.sed. Looking back, he saw, half-way down the road, a tall, red woman leaning over a gate, who, upon attracting his attention, began waving her arms frantically, after the manner of an old-fashioned signalman inviting a train to "Come on." Callandar's step quickened in spite of himself and he forgot his idle musings.

"Land sakes! I thought you'd never get here!" exclaimed the red woman fervently. "I suppose that imp of a boy didn't direct you right. Lucky I knew you as soon as you pa.s.sed the corner. Mark Morrison may be as useless as they make 'em, but he's got a fine gift for description. Come right in. I'm dreadful anxious about Ann. It don't seem like measles, and she's had chicken-pox twice, and if she's sickening for anything worse I want to know it. I ain't one of them optimists that won't believe they're sick till they're dead. Callandar's your name, Mark says--any chance of your being a cousin to Dr. Callandar of Montreal that cured Mrs. Sowerby?"

"No, I am not that Dr. Callandar's cousin."

"I told Mark 'twasn't likely--or you wouldn't be here. Not if he'd any family feeling. I'm a great believer in a man making his own stepping-stones anyway," she went on with a friendly smile; "we ought to rise up on ourselves, like the poet says, and not on our cousins."

"A n.o.ble sentiment," said Callandar gravely, as he followed her up the walk, across a veranda so clean that one hesitated to step on it, and into a small hall, bare and spotless, where he was invited to hang up his hat.

"You're younger than I expected," went on Mrs. Sykes kindly. "I hope you ain't entirely dependent on your practice in Coombe?"

The amazed doctor was understood to murmur something about "private means."

"That's good. You'd starve if you hadn't. Coombe's a terrible healthy place and poor Doc. Simmonds didn't pay a call a week. I just felt like some one ought to warn you. I despise folks who hold back from telling things because they ain't quite pleasant. Know the worst, I always say; it's better in the end. Of course, as Mark says, your being a Presbyterian will make considerable diff'rence. Some folks thought Doc.

Simmonds was pretty nigh an infiddle!"

Too overcome by his feelings to answer, Callandar followed her up the narrow stair and into a clean bright room with green-tinted walls and yellow matting on the floor.

Mrs. Sykes waved a deprecatory hand, at once exhibiting and apologising for so much splendour.

"This is the spare-room," she explained. "And there," pointing to the high, old-fashioned bed, "is Ann."

Callandar crossed the immaculate matting gingerly, taking Ann on faith, as it were, for, from the door, no; Ann was visible, only a very small dent in the big whiteness of the bed.

"Ann! Here's the doctor!"

A small black head and a pair of frightened black eyes appeared for a moment as if by conjuration, and instantly vanished.

"Ann!" said Mrs. Sykes more sternly.

There was a squirming somewhere under the bedclothes, but nothing happened.

"Great Scott!" exclaimed the doctor, "you've got the child in a feather-bed!"

Mrs. Sykes beamed complacently.

"Yes, I have. It may seem like taking a lot of trouble for nothing, but you never can tell. I ain't one of them that never prepares for anything. Jest as soon as Ann gets sick I move her right into the spare-room and put her into the best feathers. Then if she should be took sudden I wouldn't have anything to regret. The minister and the doctor can come in here any hour and find things as I could wish....

Ann! what do you mean by wiggling down like that? Ann--come up at once!

The doctor wants to see your tongue."

This time the note of command was effective. The black head came to the surface, again followed by the frightened eyes and plump little cheeks stained with feverish red.

"Some cool water, if you please," ordered the doctor in his best professional manner. Mrs. Sykes opened her lips to ask why, but something caused her to shut them without asking.

When she had left the room, Callandar leaned suddenly over and lifted Ann bodily out of the dent and placed her firmly upon a pillow. It was a very plump pillow, evidently filled with the "best feathers," but compared with the bed it was as a rock in an ocean.