f his fingers on a tiny red
scar on her forefinger.

"Do you know the story the drop of blood I took from this prick this
morning told?" he asked with his eyes shining into hers. "A gain of
over thirty percent in red corpuscles in less than a month. Yes, I
admit it; Mother is building, but when she has you ready--I'm going to
give it back to you, the wonderful voice. I don't know why I know, but
I do."

"And I don't know why I know that you will--but I do," she answered
with lowered voice and eyes. "When all the others tried I knew they
would fail. The horrible thought clutched at my throat always, and
there seemed no help. I don't feel it now at all. I'm too busy," she
added with a catch in her laugh and a sudden mist in her eyes.

"Mother's treatment again," he laughed as he laid her hand gently back
on the table.

"And yours--when directed by her--her philosophies," she ventured
daringly, as she lifted Martin Luther into her arms, with a view to
depositing him upon the haven of Mother's bed to finish his nap.

The Doctor looked at her a second, started to answer, thought better of
it, took the heavy youngster out of her arms into his own and strode
across the hall with him into Mother's room.

The singer lady walked to the edge of the porch, pulled down a spray of
the fragrant vine and looked out through it to the blue hills beyond
the meadows. She hummed a waltz-song this time, and her eyes were
dancing as if she were meditating some further assault on the Doctor's
imperturbability. He came back and stood beside her, and was just about
to make a tentative remark when Mother Mayberry hurried around the side
of the house.

"Children!" she exclaimed, her eyes shining, her cheeks pink with
excitement, and the white curls flying in every direction; "I never did
have such a time in my life! It WERE a chicken-hawk and he were right
down amongst the hens and little chickens. Old Dominick was spread out
like a featherbed over all hers and most of Spangles', and there
Spangles was just a-contending with him over one of her little black
babies. He had it in his claw, but she had him by a beak full of
feathers and was a-swinging on for fare-you-well. Old Dominick was
a-directing of her with squawks, and Ruffle Neck was just squatting
over hers, batting her eyes with skeer, for all the world like she was
a fine lady a-going into a faint. And there stood all four of the
roosters, not a one of 'em a-turning of a feather t