abuse his patience. All would come right. Only
it did take such a long, long while for it to get that way!
Hungry-time is very hard on little boys when they are waiting for
things to come right, and it was so hard on David that twice he
called aloud for Mother. A wooden echo, sent back from barns and
sheds, dolefully repeated the last syllable of his cry. It was
sad mockery, but David held doggedly to his belief that finally
things would come right. His hands closed rigidly upon the sides
of the fence-post, and from beneath the tight-shut eyelids slow
tear-drops were squeezing out.

It was so that Dr. Redfield found him. With medicine-case in
hand, the physician had come down the walk from the desolate,
scowling house. As he seized the child in his arms, and as he
felt the small arms of David go about his neck, the word that
greeted him was "Fav-ver!"

CHAPTER VII

AS A FOUNTAIN IN THE DESERT

The magic that is in the touch of a little boy! There is nothing
like it to drive out the weariness from a heart that knows it
must not grow too tired. So now, when Dr. Redfield left the house
where he had been, it meant much to him that there should be such
a welcome awaiting him at the gate. It was a gray and worn smile,
but still a smile that answered the child's unexpected greeting,
and as the wee arms went tight about the man's neck he asked no
questions; he merely said:--

"I wish I were, little boy--I wish I were your father. We would
have a rest, wouldn't we? We would take time to know each
other."

As he said this there came into the Doctor's face the same look
which he had just seen in the eyes of the father and mother who
were trusting to him to save their little boy. Many times other
fathers and other mothers had made that mute appeal to him, and
he had done what he could for them. He had done all that could be
done. He was doing it to-day, and he had been doing it every day
these past eight weeks that had been as twenty years to him.

For a scourge had come, and the city was trembling in the fear of
it. Again Duck Town was responsible. Duck Town always was
responsible. Every spring when the floods came, and Mud Creek
spread itself out over the prairie, only the ducks of Duck Town
were secure. Then, when the waters subsided, there came malaria,
or perhaps something worse, from the musty cellars that could not
be drained. The settlement lay in the bottoms, where the wretched
dwellings of the poor sto