thirty miles in
three hours, if there was a child in the next county with a bean in
its windpipe and the Doctor gave her a hint of the fact. Cassia was
not large, but she had a good deal of action, and was the Doctor's
show-horse. There were two other animals in his stable: Quassia or
Quashy, the black horse, and Caustic, the old bay, with whom he jogged
round the village.

"A long ride to-day?" said Abel, as he brought up the equipage.

"Just out of the village,--that 's all.--There 's a kink in her
mane,--pull it out, will you?"

"Goin' to visit some of the great folks," Abel said to himself. "Wonder
who it is."--Then to the Doctor,--"Anybody get sick at Sprowles's? They
say Deacon Soper had a fit, after eatin' some o' their frozen victuals."

The Doctor smiled. He guessed the Deacon would do well enough. He was
only going to ride over to the Dudley mansion-house.

CHAPTER X. THE DOCTOR CALLS ON ELSIE VENNER.

If that primitive physician, Chiron, M. D., appears as a Centaur, as
we look at him through the lapse of thirty centuries, the modern
country-doctor, if he could be seen about thirty miles off, could not be
distinguished from a wheel-animalcule. He inhabits a wheel-carriage.
He thinks of stationary dwellings as Long Tom Coffin did of land in
general; a house may be well enough for incidental purposes, but for
a "stiddy" residence give him a "kerridge." If he is classified in the
Linnaean scale, he must be set down thus: Genus Homo; Species Rotifer
infusorius, the wheel-animal of infusions.

The Dudley mansion was not a mile from the Doctor's; but it never
occurred to him to think of walking to see any of his patients'
families, if he had any professional object in his visit. Whenever the
narrow sulky turned in at a gate, the rustic who was digging potatoes,
or hoeing corn, or swishing through the grass with his scythe, in
wave-like crescents, or stepping short behind a loaded wheelbarrow,
or trudging lazily by the side of the swinging, loose-throated,
short-legged oxen, rocking along the road as if they had just been
landed after a three-months' voyage, the toiling native, whatever he was
doing, stopped and looked up at the house the Doctor was visiting.

"Somebody sick over there t' Haynes's. Guess th' old man's ailin' ag'in.
Winder's half-way open in the chamber,--should n' wonder 'f he was dead
and laid aout. Docterin' a'n't no use, when y' see th' winders open like
that. Wahl, money a'n't muc