e and there, sounded like the thuds of a giant. I recall
progressing in a shivery ghost-like sort of way, expecting at any step
to encounter goblins of the most approved form, until finally the
well-known outlines of the house of the doctor on the main
street--yellow, many-roomed, a wide porch in front--came, because of a
very small lamp in a very large glass case to one side of the door, into
view.

Here I knocked, and then knocked more. No reply. I then made a still
more forceful effort. Finally, through one of the red glass panels which
graced either side of the door I saw the lengthy figure of the doctor,
arrayed in a long white nightshirt, and carrying a small glass
hand-lamp, come into view at the head of the stairs. His feet were in
gray flannel slippers, and his whiskers stuck out most grotesquely.

"Wait! Wait!" I heard him call. "I'll be there! I'm coming! Don't make
such a fuss! It seems as though I never get a real good night's rest any
more."

He came on, opened the door, and looked out.

"Well," he demanded, a little fussily for him, "what's the matter now?"

"Doctor," I began, and proceeded to explain all my sister's aches and
pains, winding up by saying that my mother said "wouldn't he please come
at once?"

"Your mother!" he grumbled. "What can I do if I do come down? Not a
thing. Feel her pulse and tell her she's all right! That's every bit I
can do. Your mother knows that as well as I do. That disease has to run
its course." He looked at me as though I were to blame, then added,
"Calling me up this way at three in the morning!"

"But she's in such pain, Doctor," I complained.

"All right--everybody has to have a little pain! You can't be sick
without it."

"I know," I replied disconsolately, believing sincerely that my sister
might die, "but she's in such awful pain, Doctor."

"Well, go on," he replied, turning up the light. "I know it's all
foolishness, but I'll come. You go back and tell your mother that I'll
be there in a little bit, but it's all nonsense, nonsense. She isn't a
bit sicker than I am right this minute, not a bit--" and he closed the
door and went upstairs.

To me this seemed just the least bit harsh for the doctor, although, as
I reasoned afterwards, he was probably half-asleep and tired--dragged
out of his bed, possibly, once or twice before in the same night. As I
returned home I felt even more fearful, for once, as I was passing a
woodshed which I could not see, a ro