n't help smiling when Mrs. John Shadrack looked
down at you.

"It's been such a treat to have you," she cried. "I've been enjoyin'
every minute of your visit."

This was puzzling. How long Mrs. John Shadrack had been entertaining
me, or I had been entertaining her, I had not the remotest idea. A
very long while ago I had seen a spire of smoke curling through the
trees in Happy Valley, and I had been told that it was from her hearth.
Then we had gone plunging madly down the hill to it, Tip, the gray colt
and I. We had turned a sharp bend, we had heard the swish of a
mountain-stream. There my memory failed me. I had awakened to find
myself helpless on a bed, strangely hard, but, oh, so restful! Then
she had appeared, sitting there smoking.

"You are the first stranger as has been here since the tax collector
last month," she said, beginning to clear away the mystery. "I love
strangers."

"How long have I been here?" I asked.

"Since last Wednesday," she answered.

"And this is what?"

"The next Saturday. I've had you three days. You was a bit wrong here
sometimes." She tapped her head solemnly. "But I powwowed."

"You powwowed me," I cried with all the spirit I could muster, for such
treatment was not to my liking. I never had any faith in charms.

"Of course," she replied. "Does you think I'd let you die? Why, when
me and Tip pulled you out of the creek you was a sight, you was, and
you was wrong here." Again she tapped her head. "You needn't
complain. Ain't you gittin' well agin? Didn't the powwow do it?"

Hardly, I thought. I must have recovered in spite of it. But the old
woman spoke with pride of her skill, and if she had not saved me by her
occult powers, she had at least helped to drag me from the creek. For
that I was grateful, so I smiled to show my thanks.

"What did you powwow for?" I asked, after a long while.

She had seated herself on the edge of the bed and was contemplating me
gravely.

"Everything," she answered. "I never had a case like yours. I never
had a patient who was run away with, and kicked on the head, and
drownded. So I says to Tip, I says, 'I'll do everything. I'll treat
for asthmy, erysipelas and pneumony, rheumatism and snake-bite, for the
yallers and----'"

"Hold on," I pleaded. "I haven't had all that."

"You mought have had any one of 'em," she said firmly. "You should 'a'
seen yourself when we found you down there in the creek. Can't you
f