Doc. Gordon by Mary E. Wilkins — Read

James and Clemency had hardly started upon their drive before there was a ring at the office door, and Doctor Gordon, who was alone there, answered it. He was confronted by a man who lived half-way between Alton and the next village on the north. He had walked some three miles to get some medicine for his wife, who was suffering from rheumatism. He was pathetically insistent upon the fact that his wife did not require a call from the doctor, only some medicine. "Now, see here, Joe," said Gordon, "if I really thought your wife needed a call, I would go, and it should not cost you a cent more than the medicine, but I am dog tired, and not feeling any too well myself, and if her symptoms are just as you say, I think I can send her something which will fix her up all right."

"She is just the way she was last year," said the man. He did not look unlike Gordon, although he was poorly clad, and was a genuine son of the New Jersey soil. His poor clothes, even his skin, had a clayey hue, as if he had been really cast from the mother earth. It was frozen outside, but a reddish crust from the last thaw was on his hulking boots. He spoke with a drawl, which was nasal, and yet had something sweet in it. "I would have came this afternoon, but I was afraid you might have went out," he remarked.