in mine. There's one note and It'll be cleared up as soon as the
small grain can be disposed of. I put the clamps on that as soon as I
heard of it. It won't happen again. I think his wife was about as glad of
the end of the credit business as any of us," Hugh said, and then added
with a laugh: "I think you're mistaken about his treatment of her, though.
You should have heard the directions he gave me about her as the train was
about to pull out; you'd have thought she was his favourite child and that
I was going to neglect her."

Doctor Morgan snorted contemptuously.

"Oh, yes, I know him. Hunter loves to give directions to anything from a
puppy dog to a preacher. That's what's the matter with her. He directs
_her_ all the time as if she didn't have sense enough to cook hot water or
wash the baby. He ain't any worse than a lot of men I know of, but you
expect more of a man that's half-educated. I tell you, Noland, the trouble
's in this business of men owning women. I've practised in these parts
ever since this country's been opened, and I see a good deal of
husbands--and they're a bad lot."

Hugh Noland watched the old doctor with a twinkle in his eye.

"You aren't going to give us men all a knock, are you?" he said amusedly.

"I'm not saying anybody's bad," Doctor Morgan said, following out his own
reasonings. "The trouble 's in men owning everything. Theoretically, a
woman shares in the property, and of course she does if she gets a
divorce, but as long as she lives with him he's the one that has the money
and she has to ask for it if she has ever so little. You take Mrs. Hunter:
she don't spend a cent he don't oversee and comment on; she's dependent on
that man for every bite she eats and for every stitch she wears and he
interferes with every blessed thing she does. Give that woman some money
of her own, Noland, and where'd she be? John Hunter 'd treat her as an
equal in a minute; he'd know she could quit, and he'd come to terms."

Doctor Morgan swung the stethoscope with which he had been listening to
Hugh's heart, and proceeded without waiting for Hugh to speak.

"Oh, we doctors see a side of women's lives you other men don't know
anything about. We see them suffer, and we know that the medicine we give
them is all knocked out by the doings of the men they live with, and we
can't raise our hands to stop the thing at the bottom of it all. Why, that
woman's just lost a child I know she was glad to lose, and--