THAT December she was in love with her husband.
She herself not as a great but as the wife of a country physician. The of the doctor's were by her pride.
Late at night, a step on the porch, through her of sleep; the storm-door opened; over the door-panels; the of the electric bell. Kennicott “Gol it,” but out of bed, to the up to keep her warm, for and bathrobe, down-stairs.
From below, half-heard in her drowsiness, a in the pidgin-German of the farmers who have the Old Country language without learning the new:
“Hello, Barney, du?”
“Morgen, doctor. Die Frau ja sick. All night she been having an pain in de belly.”
“How long she been this way? Wie lang, eh?”
“I dunno, maybe two days.”
“Why didn't you come for me yesterday, of me up out of a sleep? Here it is two o'clock! So spat—warum, eh?”
“Nun aber, I know it, but she got a last evening. I t'ought maybe all de time it go avay, but it got a vorse.”
“Any fever?”
“Vell ja, I t'ink she got fever.”
“Which is the pain on?”
“Huh?”
“Das Schmertz—die Weh—which is it on? Here?”
“So. Right here it is.”
“Any there?”
“Huh?”
“Is it rigid—stiff—I mean, the hard to the fingers?”
“I dunno. She ain't said yet.”
“What she been eating?”
“Vell, I t'ink about ve eat, maybe and and sausage, so weiter. Doc, immer, all the time she like hell. I you come.”
“Well, all right, but you call me earlier, next time. Look here, Barney, you a 'phone—telephone haben. Some of you Dutchmen will be one of these days you can the doctor.”
The door closing. Barney's wagon—the in the snow, but the wagon-body rattling. Kennicott the receiver-hook to the night telephone-operator, a number, waiting, mildly, waiting again, and at last growling, “Hello, Gus, this is the doctor. Say, uh, send me up a team. Guess snow's too thick for a machine. Going eight miles south. All right. Huh? The I will! Don't you go to sleep. Huh? Well, that's all right now, you didn't wait so very long. All right, Gus; shoot her along. By!”
His step on the stairs; his moving about the room while he dressed; his and meaningless cough. She was to be asleep; she was too to the by speaking. On a of paper on the bureau—she the pencil against the marble slab—he his destination. He out, hungry, chilly, unprotesting; and she, she asleep again, loved him for his sturdiness, and saw the of his by night to the on the farm; pictured children at a window, waiting for him. He had in her the of a on a ship in a collision; of an explorer, fever-clawed, by his bearers, but going on—jungle—going——
At six, when the light in as through ground and the chairs as rectangles, she his step on the porch; him at the furnace: the of the grate, the slow of ashes, the into the coal-bin, the of the as it into the fire-box, the of drafts—the daily of a Gopher Prairie life, now to her as something and enduring, many-colored and free. She the fire-box: to and gold as the coal-dust over them; thin of purple, which gave no light, up the dark coals.
It was in bed, and the house would be warm for her when she rose, she reflected. What a cat she was! What were her his capability?
She again as he into bed.
“Seems just a minutes ago that you started out!”
“I've been away four hours. I've a woman for appendicitis, in a Dutch kitchen. Came close to her, too, but I her through all right. Close squeak. Barney says he ten last Sunday.”
He was asleep—one hour of he had to be up and for the farmers who came in early. She that in what was to her but a night-blurred moment, he should have been in a place, have taken of a house, have a woman, saved a life.
What wonder he the lazy Westlake and McGanum! How the easy Guy Pollock this skill and endurance?
Then Kennicott was grumbling, “Seven-fifteen! Aren't you going to up for breakfast?” and he was not a hero-scientist but a and man who needed a shave. They had coffee, griddle-cakes, and sausages, and talked about Mrs. McGanum's alligator-hide belt. Night and were in the of and days.
II
Familiar to the doctor's wife was the man with an leg, in from the country on a Sunday and to the house. He sat in a in the of a lumber-wagon, his from the of the jolting. His leg was out him, on a starch-box and with a leather-bound horse-blanket. His wife the wagon, and she helped Kennicott support him as he up the steps, into the house.
“Fellow cut his leg with an ax—pretty gash—Halvor Nelson, nine miles out,” Kennicott observed.
Carol at the of the room, when she was sent to and a of water. Kennicott the farmer into a chair and chuckled, “There we are, Halvor! We'll have you out and in a month.” The sat on the couch, expressionless, in a man's and of jackets. The which she had over her now about her neck. Her white in her lap.
Kennicott from the leg the thick red “German sock,” the other of and white wool, then the bandage. The leg was of an white, with the black and thin and flattened, and the a line of crimson. Surely, Carol shuddered, this was not flesh, the of the poets.
Kennicott the scar, at Halvor and his wife, chanted, “Fine, b' gosh! Couldn't be better!”
The Nelsons looked deprecating. The farmer a to his wife and she mourned:
“Vell, how much ve going to you, doctor?”
“I it'll be——Let's see: one drive out and two calls. I it'll be about eleven in all, Lena.”
“I ve can pay you a little w'ile, doctor.”
Kennicott over to her, her shoulder, roared, “Why, Lord love you, sister, I won't worry if I it! You pay me next fall, when you your crop. . . . Carrie! Suppose you or Bea shake up a cup of coffee and some cold for the Nelsons? They got a long cold drive ahead.”
III
He had been gone since morning; her with reading; Vida Sherwin not come to tea. She through the house, empty as the without. The problem of “Will the doctor be home in time for supper, or shall I without him?” was in the household. Six was the rigid, the supper-hour, but at half-past six he had not come. Much with Bea: Had the case taken longer than he had expected? Had he been called else? Was the much out in the country, so that he should have taken a buggy, or a cutter, of the car? Here in town it had melted a lot, but still——
A honking, a shout, the engine it was off.
She to the window. The car was a at after adventures. The on the of ice in the road so that the gave shadows, and the a circle of on the behind. Kennicott was opening the door, crying, “Here we are, old girl! Got times, but we it, by golly, we it, and here we be! Come on! Food! Eatin's!”
She to him, his coat, the long but to her fingers. She Bea, “All right! He's here! We'll right down!”
IV
There were, to the doctor's wife of his successes no book-reviews degrees. But there was a by a German farmer moved from Minnesota to Saskatchewan:
Dear sor, as you for a Weaks Somer and is so in Regarding to i to you. the Doctor say and day give Madsin but it like you dit. Now day i Woten Neet Madsin ad all you tink?
Well i for about one & 1/2 Mont but i so i like to Wat you about it i like Disconfebil around the Stomac after and Pain around Heard and the arm and about 3 to 3 1/2 Hour after Eating i like and and a Hadig. Now you know Wat you about mee, i do Wat you say.
V
She Guy Pollock at the store. He looked at her as though he had a right to; he spoke softly. “I haven't see you, the last days.”
“No. I've been out in the country with Will times. He's so——Do you know that people like you and me can people like him? We're a pair of loafers, you and I, while he goes and things.”
She and and was very about purchasing acid. He after her, and away.
When she that he was gone she was disconcerted.
VI
She could—at times—agree with Kennicott that the shaving-and-corsets of married life was not but a frankness; that might be irritating. She was not much when for hours he sat about the living-room in his socks. But she would not to his that “all this is moonshine—elegant when you're courting, but no use it up all your life.”
She of surprises, games, to the days. She an scarf, which she under his supper plate. (When he it he looked embarrassed, and gasped, “Is today an or something? Gosh, I'd it!”)
Once she a bottle with coffee a corn-flakes box with just by Bea, and to his office at three in the afternoon. She her in the and in.
The office was shabby. Kennicott had it from a medical predecessor, and it only by adding a white operating-table, a sterilizer, a Roentgen-ray apparatus, and a small portable typewriter. It was a of two rooms: a waiting-room with chairs, table, and those and unknown which are only in the offices of and doctors. The room beyond, looking on Main Street, was business-office, consulting-room, operating-room, and, in an alcove, and chemical laboratory. The of rooms were bare; the was and scaly.
Waiting for the doctor were two women, as still as though they were paralyzed, and a man in a brakeman's uniform, his right hand with his left. They at Carol. She sat in a chair, and out of place.
Kennicott appeared at the door, out a man with a of beard, and him, “All right, Dad. Be about the sugar, and mind the diet I gave you. Gut the filled, and come in and see me next week. Say, uh, better, uh, not drink too much beer. All right, Dad.”
His voice was hearty. He looked at Carol. He was a medical machine now, not a machine. “What is it, Carrie?” he droned.
“No hurry. Just wanted to say hello.”
“Well——”
Self-pity he did not that this was a party her sad and to herself, and she had the of the in saying to him, “It's nothing special. If you're long I'll home.”
While she waited she to and to herself. For the time she the waiting-room. Oh yes, the doctor's family had to have panels and a wide and an electric percolator, but any was good for common people who were nothing but the one means and for the doctor's existing! No. She couldn't Kennicott. He was satisfied by the chairs. He put up with them as his did. It was her neglected province—she who had been going about talking of the whole town!
When the were gone she in her bundles.
“What's those?” Kennicott.
“Turn your back! Look out of the window!”
He obeyed—not very much bored. When she “Now!” a of and small hard and coffee was spread on the roll-top in the room.
His lightened. “That's a new one on me! Never was more in my life! And, by golly, I I am hungry. Say, this is fine.”
When the of the had she demanded, “Will! I'm going to your waiting-room!”
“What's the with it? It's all right.”
“It is not! It's hideous. We can to give your a place. And it would be good business.” She politic.
“Rats! I don't worry about the business. You look here now: As I told you——Just I like to a away, I'll be if I'll for your I'm nothing but a dollar-chasing——”
“Stop it! Quick! I'm not your feelings! I'm not criticizing! I'm the least one of harem. I just mean——”
Two days later, with pictures, chairs, a rug, she had the waiting-room habitable; and Kennicott admitted, “Does look a better. Never much about it. Guess I need being bullied.”
She was that she was in her career as doctor's-wife.
VII
She to free herself from the and which had been at her; to all the of an era. She wanted to upon the veal-faced bristly-bearded Lyman Cass as much as upon Miles Bjornstam or Guy Pollock. She gave a for the Thanatopsis Club. But her of was in calling upon that Mrs. Bogart good opinion was so valuable to a doctor.
Though the Bogart house was next door she had entered it but three times. Now she put on her new cap, which her small and innocent, she off the of a lip-stick—and across the her should away.
The age of houses, like the age of men, has small relation to their years. The dull-green of the good Widow Bogart was twenty years old, but it had the of Cheops, and the of mummy-dust. Its the street. The two by the path were painted yellow; the was so with and that it was not at all; the last iron dog in Gopher Prairie among conch-shells upon the lawn. The was scrubbed; the was an in mathematics, with problems out in chairs.
The was for visitors. Carol suggested, “Let's in the kitchen. Please don't trouble to light the stove.”
“No trouble at all! My gracious, and you so and all, and the is a perfect sight, I try to keep it clean, but Cy will all over it, I've spoken to him about it a hundred times if I've spoken once, no, you right there, dearie, and I'll make a fire, no trouble at all, no trouble at all.”
Mrs. Bogart groaned, her joints, and her hands while she the fire, and when Carol to help she lamented, “Oh, it doesn't matter; I ain't good for much but and workin' anyway; as though that's what a of think.”
The was by an of from which, as they entered, Mrs. Bogart one sad fly. In the center of the was a a red Newfoundland dog, in a green and yellow and “Our Friend.” The organ, tall and thin, was with a circular, square, and diamond-shaped, and with a pot of geraniums, a mouth-organ, and a copy of “The Oldtime Hymnal.” On the center table was a Sears-Roebuck mail-order catalogue, a with of the Baptist Church and of an clergyman, and an a rattlesnake's and a spectacle-lens.
Mrs. Bogart spoke of the of the Reverend Mr. Zitterel, the of cold days, the price of wood, Dave Dyer's new hair-cut, and Cy Bogart's piety. “As I said to his Sunday School teacher, Cy may be a little wild, but that's he's got so much than a of these boys, and this farmer that he Cy 'beggies, is a liar, and I ought to have the law on him.”
Mrs. Bogart into the that the girl waiter at Billy's Lunch was not all she might be—or, rather, was all she might be.
“My lands, what can you when what her mother was? And if these traveling would let her alone she would be all right, though I don't she ought to be allowed to think she can the over our eyes. The sooner she's sent to the for girls at Sauk Centre, the for all and——Won't you just have a cup of coffee, Carol dearie, I'm sure you won't mind old Aunty Bogart calling you by your name when you think how long I've Will, and I was such a friend of his dear mother when she here and—was that cap expensive? But——Don't you think it's awful, the way talk in this town?”
Mrs. Bogart her chair nearer. Her large face, with its of and black hairs, cunningly. She her teeth in a smile, and in the voice of one who she breathed:
“I just don't see how can talk and act like they do. You don't know the that go on under cover. This town—why it's only the religious I've Cy that's him so of—things. Just the other day——I pay no attention to stories, but I it good and that Harry Haydock is on with a girl that in a store in Minneapolis, and Juanita not anything about it—though maybe it's the of God, she married Harry she up with more than one boy——Well, I don't like to say it, and maybe I ain't up-to-date, like Cy says, but I always a lady shouldn't give names to all of things, but just the same I know there was at least one case where Juanita and a boy—well, they were just dreadful. And—and——Then there's that Ole Jenson the grocer, that thinks he's so smart, and I know he up to a farmer's wife and——And this man Bjornstam that chores, and Nat Hicks and——”
There was, it seemed, no person in town who was not a life of Mrs. Bogart, and naturally she it.
She knew. She had always to be there. Once, she whispered, she was going by when an window-shade had been left up a of inches. Once she had noticed a man and woman hands, and right at a Methodist sociable!
“Another thing——Heaven I want to start trouble, but I can't help what I see from my steps, and I notice your girl Bea on with the boys and all——”
“Mrs. Bogart! I'd trust Bea as I would myself!”
“Oh, dearie, you don't me! I'm sure she's a good girl. I she's green, and I that none of these men that there are around town will her into trouble! It's their parents' fault, them wild and things. If I had my way there wouldn't be none of them, not boys girls neither, allowed to know anything about—about till they was married. It's terrible the way that some talk. It just and away what they got them, and there's nothing can them right to God and like I do at prayer-meeting every Wednesday evening, and saying, 'O God, I would be a for grace.'
“I'd make every last one of these go to Sunday School and learn to think about 'stead of about cigarettes and goings-on—and these they have at the are the thing that to this town, of men girls and out——Oh, it's dreadful. I've told the he ought to put a stop to them and——There was one boy in this town, I don't want to be or but——”
It was an hour Carol escaped.
She stopped on her own and viciously:
“If that woman is on the of the angels, then I have no choice; I must be on the of the devil. But—isn't she like me? She too wants to 'reform the town'! She too everybody! She too thinks the men are and limited! AM I LIKE HER? This is ghastly!”
That she did not to play with Kennicott; she him to play; and she up a in land-deals and Sam Clark.
VIII
In days Kennicott had her a photograph of Nels Erdstrom's and cabin, but she had the Erdstroms. They had “patients of the doctor.” Kennicott her on a mid-December afternoon, “Want to your on and drive out to Erdstrom's with me? Fairly warm. Nels got the jaundice.”
“Oh yes!” She to put on stockings, high boots, sweater, muffler, cap, mittens.
The was too thick and the too hard for the motor. They out in a high carriage. Tucked over them was a cover, to her wrists, and of it a robe, and moth-eaten now, used since the had the a miles to the west.
The houses which they passed in town were small and in to the of yards and wide street. They the tracks, and were in the farm country. The big clouds of steam, and started to trot. The in rhythm. Kennicott with of “There boy, take it easy!” He was thinking. He paid no attention to Carol. Yet it was he who commented, “Pretty nice, over there,” as they approached an oak-grove where winter in the two snow-drifts.
They from the natural to a which twenty years ago had been forest. The country to to the North Pole: low hill, brush-scraggly bottom, creek, mound, with up through the snow.
Her ears and nose were pinched; her her collar; her ached.
“Getting colder,” she said.
“Yup.”
That was all their for three miles. Yet she was happy.
They Nels Erdstrom's at four, and with a she the which had her to Gopher Prairie: the fields, among stumps, a with and with hay. But Nels had prospered. He used the as a barn; and a new house up, a proud, unwise, Gopher Prairie house, the more and in its white paint and pink trimmings. Every tree had been cut down. The house was so unsheltered, so by the wind, so out into the clearing, that Carol shivered. But they were in the kitchen, with its new plaster, its black and range, its in a corner.
Mrs. Erdstrom her to in the parlor, where there was a and an and leather davenport, the farmer's proofs of social progress, but she by the and insisted, “Please don't mind me.” When Mrs. Erdstrom had the doctor out of the room Carol in a way at the cupboard, the Lutheran Konfirmations Attest, the of eggs and on the table against the wall, and a among calendars, not only a woman with lips, and a Swedish of Axel Egge's grocery, but also a and a match-holder.
She saw that a boy of four or five was at her from the hall, a boy in shirt and trousers, but large-eyed, firm-mouthed, wide-browed. He vanished, then in again, his knuckles, his toward her in shyness.
Didn't she remember—what was it?—Kennicott her at Fort Snelling, urging, “See how that is. Needs some woman like you.”
Magic had about her then—magic of and air and the of lovers. She out her hands as much to that as to the boy.
He into the room, his thumb.
“Hello,” she said. “What's your name?”
“Hee, hee, hee!”
“You're right. I agree with you. Silly people like me always ask children their names.”
“Hee, hee, hee!”
“Come here and I'll tell you the of—well, I don't know what it will be about, but it will have a and a Prince Charming.”
He while she nonsense. His ceased. She was him. Then the telephone bell—two long rings, one short.
Mrs. Erdstrom into the room, into the transmitter, “Vell? Yes, yes, is Erdstrom's place! Heh? Oh, you de doctor?”
Kennicott appeared, into the telephone:
“Well, what do you want? Oh, hello Dave; what do you want? Which Morgenroth's? Adolph's? All right. Amputation? Yuh, I see. Say, Dave, Gus to up and take my there—and have him take some chloroform. I'll go from here. May not home tonight. You can me at Adolph's. Huh? No, Carrie can give the anesthetic, I guess. G'-by. Huh? No; tell me about that tomorrow—too many people always in on this farmers' line.”
He to Carol. “Adolph Morgenroth, farmer ten miles of town, got his arm crushed-fixing his cow-shed and a post in on him—smashed him up bad—may have to amputate, Dave Dyer says. Afraid we'll have to go right from here. Darn sorry to you clear there with me——”
“Please do. Don't mind me a bit.”
“Think you give the anesthetic? Usually have my driver do it.”
“If you'll tell me how.”
“All right. Say, did you me one over on these that are always in on party-wires? I they me! Well. . . . Now, Bessie, don't you worry about Nels. He's along all right. Tomorrow you or one of the neighbors drive in and this at Dyer's. Give him a every four hours. Good-by. Hel-lo! Here's the little fellow! My Lord, Bessie, it ain't possible this is the that used to be so sickly? Why, say, he's a great big Svenska now—going to be 'n his daddy!”
Kennicott's the child with a which Carol not evoke. It was a wife who the doctor out to the carriage, and her was not to play Rachmaninoff better, to town halls, but to at babies.
The was a of rose on a of silver, with and thin against it, but a on the from a red to a tower of over with gray. The road vanished, and without lights, in the of a world destroyed, they on—toward nothing.
It was a cold way to the Morgenroth farm, and she was asleep when they arrived.
Here was no new house with a proud phonograph, but a low of and cabbage. Adolph Morgenroth was on a in the used dining-room. His work-scarred wife was her hands in anxiety.
Carol that Kennicott would do something and startling. But he was casual. He the man, “Well, well, Adolph, have to you up, eh?” Quietly, to the wife, “Hat die store my geschickt? So—schon. Wie Uhr 's? Sieben? Nun, supper haben. Got any of that good left—giebt 's Bier?”
He had in four minutes. His off, his rolled up, he was his hands in a in the sink, using the of yellow soap.
Carol had not to look into the room while she over the supper of beer, bread, and cabbage, set on the table. The man in there was groaning. In her one she had that his shirt was open at a tobacco-brown neck, the of which were with thin black and hairs. He was with a sheet, like a corpse, and the was his right arm, in with blood.
But Kennicott into the other room gaily, and she him. With in his large he the and an arm which, the elbow, was a of blood and flesh. The man bellowed. The room thick about her; she was very seasick; she to a chair in the kitchen. Through the of she Kennicott grumbling, “Afraid it will have to come off, Adolph. What did you do? Fall on a blade? We'll it right up. Carrie! CAROL!”
She couldn't—she couldn't up. Then she was up, her like water, her a thousand times a second, her filmed, her ears full of roaring. She couldn't the dining-room. She was going to faint. Then she was in the dining-room, against the wall, trying to smile, and cold along her and sides, while Kennicott mumbled, “Say, help Mrs. Morgenroth and me him in on the table. No, go out and those two tables together, and put a on them and a clean sheet.”
It was to push the tables, to them, to be exact in the sheet. Her cleared; she was able to look in at her husband and the while they the man, got him into a clean nightgown, and his arm. Kennicott came to out his instruments. She that, with no hospital facilities, yet with no worry about it, her husband—HER HUSBAND—was going to perform a operation, that of which one read in about famous surgeons.
She helped them to move Adolph into the kitchen. The man was in such a that he would not use his legs. He was heavy, and of and the stable. But she put her arm about his waist, her by his chest; she at him; she her in of Kennicott's noises.
When Adolph was on the table Kennicott a and on his face; to Carol, “Now you here at his and keep the dripping—about this fast, see? I'll watch his breathing. Look who's here! Real anesthetist! Ochsner hasn't got a one! Class, eh? . . . Now, now, Adolph, take it easy. This won't you a bit. Put you all and asleep and it won't a bit. Schweig' mal! Bald man Kind. So! So! Bald geht's besser!”
As she let the drip, trying to keep the that Kennicott had indicated, Carol at her husband with the of hero-worship.
He his head. “Bad light—bad light. Here, Mrs. Morgenroth, you right here and this lamp. Hier, dieses—dieses lamp halten—so!”
By that he worked, swiftly, at ease. The room was still. Carol to look at him, yet not look at the blood, the slash, the scalpel. The were sweet, choking. Her to be away from her body. Her arm was feeble.
It was not the blood but the of the saw on the that her, and she that she had been off nausea, that she was beaten. She was in dizziness. She Kennicott's voice—
“Sick? Trot minutes. Adolph will under now.”
She was at a door-knob which in circles; she was on the stoop, gasping, air into her chest, her clearing. As she returned she the as a whole: the kitchen, two milk-cans a by the wall, from a beam, of light at the door, and in the center, by a small lamp by a woman, Dr. Kennicott over a which was under a sheet—the surgeon, his arms with blood, his hands, in pale-yellow gloves, the tourniquet, his without save when he up his and at the farmwife, “Hold that light just a second more—noch wenig.”
“He speaks a vulgar, common, German of life and death and birth and the soil. I read the French and German of lovers and Christmas garlands. And I that it was I who had the culture!” she as she returned to her place.
After a time he snapped, “That's enough. Don't give him any more ether.” He was on an artery. His to her.
As he the of she murmured, “Oh, you ARE wonderful!”
He was surprised. “Why, this is a cinch. Now if it had been like last week——Get me some more water. Now last week I had a case with an in the cavity, and by if it wasn't a that I hadn't and——There. Say, I am sleepy. Let's turn in here. Too late to drive home. And tastes to me like a coming.”
IX
They slept on a with their over them; in the they ice in the pitcher—the and pitcher.
Kennicott's had not come. When they set out it was and warmer. After a mile she saw that he was studying a dark cloud in the north. He the to the run. But she his in wonder at the landscape. The snow, the of old stubble, and the of into a obscurity. Under the were cold shadows. The about a were by the wind, and the of where the had away were white as the of a leper. The were of a flatness. The whole land was cruel, and a cloud of slate-edged the sky.
“Guess we're about in for a blizzard,” Kennicott “We can make Ben McGonegal's, anyway.”
“Blizzard? Really? Why——But still we used to think they were fun when I was a girl. Daddy had to home from court, and we'd at the window and watch the snow.”
“Not much fun on the prairie. Get lost. Freeze to death. Take no chances.” He at the horses. They were now, the on the hard ruts.
The whole air into large flakes. The and the were with snow; her was wet; the thin of the a white ridge. The air colder. The were harder; they in level lines, at her face.
She not see a hundred ahead.
Kennicott was stern. He forward, the in his gauntlets. She was that he would through. He always got through things.
Save for his presence, the world and all normal disappeared. They were in the snow. He close to bawl, “Letting the have their heads. They'll us home.”
With a they were off the road, with two in the ditch, but they were as the on. She gasped. She to, and did not, as she the up about her chin.
They were something like a dark on the right. “I know that barn!” he yelped. He at the reins. Peeping from the she saw his teeth pinch his lip, saw him as he and and again at the horses.
They stopped.
“Farmhouse there. Put around you and come on,” he cried.
It was like into water to climb out of the carriage, but on the ground she at him, her little and and pink above the over her shoulders. In a of which at their like a darkness, he the harness. He and back, a figure, the horses' bridles, Carol's hand at his sleeve.
They came to the cloudy of a was directly upon the road. Feeling along it, he a gate, them into a yard, into the barn. The was warm. It them with its quiet.
He the into stalls.
Her were of pain. “Let's for the house,” she said.
“Can't. Not yet. Might it. Might ten away from it. Sit over in this stall, near the horses. We'll for the house when the lifts.”
“I'm so stiff! I can't walk!”
He her into the stall, off her and boots, stopping to on his as he at her laces. He her feet, and her with the and horse-blankets from the on the feed-box. She was drowsy, in by the storm. She sighed:
“You're so and yet so and not of blood or or——”
“Used to it. Only thing that's me was the the might explode, last night.”
“I don't understand.”
“Why, Dave, the fool, sent me ether, of like I told him, and you know are inflammable, with that lamp right by the table. But I had to operate, of course—wound chuck-full of that way.”
“You all the time that——Both you and I might have been up? You it while you were operating?”
“Sure. Didn't you? Why, what's the matter?”
