ed sulky and his smart mare, advancing
always with desperate flings of forward hoofs--which caused the
children to scatter--were familiar objects, not only in the cluster
of Uphams, but also in Dale and Granby, and the little outlying
hamlet of Ford's Hill, which was nothing but a scattering group of
farm-houses, with a spire in their midst, and which came under the
jurisdiction of Upham. In all these villages people were wont to run
from the windows to the doors when they saw the doctor's sulky whirl
past, peer after it, up or down the road, to see where it might stop,
and speculate if this old soul were about to leave the world, or that
new soul to come into it.

One afternoon, not long before he was twenty-one, Jerome Edwards
walked some three miles and a half to Ford's Hill to carry some shoes
to a woman binder who was too lame to come for them herself. Jerome
walked altogether of late years, for the white horse was dead of old
age: but it was well for him, since he was saved thereby from the
permanent crouch of the shoe-bench.

When, having left his shoes, he was returning down the steep street
of the little settlement, he saw Doctor Prescott's sulky ahead of
him. Then, just before it reached a small weather-beaten house on the
right, he saw a woman rush out as if to stop it, and a man follow
after her and pull her back through the door.

The sulky was driven past at a rapid pace; for the weather was sharp,
and the doctor's mare stepped out well after standing. When Jerome
reached the house the doctor was scarcely within hailing distance;
but the woman was out again, calling after him frantically: "Doctor!
Doctor! Doctor Prescott! Stop! Stop here! Doctor!"

Jerome sprang forward to offer his assistance in summoning him, but
at that instant the man reappeared again and clutched the woman by
the arm. "Come back, come back in the house, Laura," he gasped,
faintly, and yet with wild energy.

Jerome saw then that the man was ghastly, staggering, and
yellow-white, except for blazing red spots on the cheeks, and that
his great eyes were bright with fever. Jerome knew him; he was a
young farmer, Henry Leeds by name, and not long married. Jerome had
gone to school with the wife, and called her familiarly by name.
"What's the matter, Laura?" he asked.

"Oh, J'rome," she half sobbed, "do help me--do call the doctor.
Henry's awful sick; I know he is. He'd ought to have the doctor, but
he won't because it costs so much.