, that's what it is. Plaster 'll eat anythin'
right up, hide, hair, 'n' all. She says don't you know how, when you
smell a dead rat in the wall, you throw some plaster in on him, 'n'
after a while you don't smell no more rat 'cause there ain't no more
rat there to smell; the plaster 's eat him all up. She says you may
laugh 'f you feel so inclined, but there ain't no such big difference
between your leg 'n' a dead rat but what it'll pay you to mark her
words. She says 'f it don't do no more 'n eat the skin off it'll still
be pretty hard for you to lay there without no skin 'n' feel the
plaster goin' in more 'n' more. She says 't we all wish him well, 'n'
yet no one in their right mind c'n deny as young Dr. Brown is n't old
Dr. Carter, 'n' no amount o' well wishin' c'n ever make him so. She
says 'f she was you she 'd never rest till old Dr. Carter 'd looked
into that leg, f'r a leg is a leg, 'n' it says in the Bible 't if you
lose your salt what 'll you salt with."

Mrs. Lathrop's distress deepened visibly.

"I tell you I was more 'n a little troubled over her words. Gran'ma
Mullins ain't one to make up nothin', 'n' I know myself 't that 's
true about the plaster. I 've eat up rats that way time 'n'
again,--mice too, f'r that matter. It 'd be an awful thing f'r you to
lay there peaceful 'n' happy till it come time f'r him to unwrap your
leg 'n' then when he unwrapped have him find no leg in the centre.
Nothin' 't he could say would help any--there you 'd be one leg gone
forever. 'F it was your foot, it 'd all be different, f'r you could
hop around right spry with a false foot, but I d'n' know what good
your foot 'll do you with the leg in between gone. I never hear o' no
real foot on a false leg, 'n' 'f I was you, I certainly wouldn't want
to lay wonderin' 'f I still had two legs f'r six weeks."

"Six weeks!" cried Mrs. Lathrop, with a start that collapsed at once
into a groan; "must I lay--"

"Gran'ma Mullins says," pursued Susan, "'t the reason she knows so
much about it all is 't she had a cousin with a broken leg once. It
wa'n't no cow 's kicked him, jus' he was give to meditatin', 'n' while
meditatin' durin' house-cleanin' he stepped down the wrong side o' the
step-ladder. She says the doctor didn't so much 's dream o' plasterin'
him up, he put splints on him, 'n' he come out fine, but she says he
was suthin' jus' awful to take care of. They thought they couldn't
stand it the first weeks he was so terrible cross