It was Farmer Green's new buggy and Farmer Green's bay colt which,
three days later than this, stopped before Dr. Holbrook's office. Not
the square-boxed wagon, with old Sorrel attached; the former was
standing quietly in the chip-yard behind the low red house, while the
latter with his nose over the barnyard fence, neighing occasionally,
as if he missed the little hands which had daily fed him the oatmeal
he liked so much, and which now lay hot and parched and helpless upon
the white counterpane Grandma Markham had spun and woven herself.
Maddy might have been just as sick as she was if the examination had
never occurred, but it was natural for those who loved her to impute
it all to the effects of excitement and cruel disappointment, so there
was something like indignation mingling with the sorrow gnawing at the
hearts of the old couple as they watched by their fever-stricken
darling. Farmer Green, too, shared the feeling, and numerous at first
were his mental animadversions against that "prig of a Holbrook." But
when Maddy grew so bad as not to know him or his wife, he laid aside
his prejudices, and suggested to Grandpa Markham that Dr. Holbrook be
sent for.
"He's great on fevers," he said, "and is good on curin' sick folks,"
so, though he would have preferred some one else should have been
called, confidence in the young doctor's skill won the day, and
grandpa consented.
This, then, was the errand of Farmer Green, and with his usual
bluntness, he said to the recreant doctor, who chanced to be at home: "Wall, you nigh about killed our little Madge t'other day, when you
refused the stifficut, and now we want you to cure her."
The doctor looked up in surprise, but Farmer Green soon explained his
meaning, making out a most aggravated case, and representing Maddy as
wild with delirium.
"Keeps talkin' about the big books, the Latin and the Hebrew, and even
the Catechism, as if such like was 'lowed in our school. I s'pose you
didn't know no better; but if Maddy dies, you'll have it to answer
for, I reckon."
The doctor did not try to excuse himself, but hastily took down the
medicines he thought he might need, and stowed them carefully away. He
had expected to hear from that examination, but not in this way, and
rather nervously he made some inquiries, as to how long she had been
ill, and so forth.
Maddy's case lost nothing by Mr. Green's account, and by the time the
doctor's horse was ready, and he on his way to the cottage, he had
arrived at the conclusion that of all the villainous men outside the
walls of the State's prison, he was the most villainous, and Guy
Remington next.