Simpson grinned like she was a' idjit, and he was sorry as the dickens fer her. "Aw, a baby ain't _all_ teeth," he says. Wal, he left some truck 'r other. Then he goes out, gits into his Pullman section, blows his punkin whistle and _de_parts. Next day, same thing. Temper'ture's still up. Medicine cain't be kept down. Case turrible puzzlin'. Makes all kinds of guesses. Leaves some hoss liniment. Toot! toot! Day after, changes the pro_gram_. Sticks a needle into the kid and gits first blood. Says somethin' about "Modern scientific idears," and tracks back t' town. Things run along that-a-way fer a week. Baby got sicker and sicker. Rose got whiter and whiter, and thinned till she was about as hefty as a shadda. Even the ole man begun t' look kinda pale 'round the gills. But Simpson didn't miss a trick. And he come t' the ranch-house so darned many times that his buckboard plumb oiled down the pike. "Rose," I says oncet to her, when I stopped by, "cain't we give Billy Trowbridge a chanst? That Simpson doc ain't worth a hill of beans." Rose didn't say nothin'. She just turned and lent over the kid. Gee whiz! I hate t' see a woman cry! 'Way early, next day, the kid had a _con_vul-sion, and ev'rybody was shore she was goin' to kick the bucket. And whilst a bunch of us was a-hangin' 'round the porch, pretty nigh luny about the pore little son-of-a-gun, Bill Rawson come--and he had a story that plumb took the last kink outen us. I hunts up the boss. "Mister Sewell," I says, by way of beginnin', "I'm feard we're goin' to lose the baby. Simpson ain't doin' much, seems like. What y' say if I ride in fer Doc Trowbridge?" "Trowbridge?" he says disgusted. "_No,_ ma'am! Simpson'll be here in a jiffy!" "I reckon Simpson'll be late," I says. "Bill Rawson seen him goin' towards Goldstone just now in his thrashin'-machine with a feemale settin' byside him. Bill says she was wearin' one of them fancy collar-box hats, with a duck-wing hitched on to it, and her hair was all mussy over her eyes--like a cow with a board on its horns--and she had enough powder on her face t' make a biscuit." The ole man begun t' chaw and spit like a bob-cat. "I ain't astin' Bill's _ad_vice," he says. "When I want it, I'll let him know. If Simpson's busy over t' Goldstone, we got to wait on him, that's all. But Trowbridge? Not _no_-ways!" I seen then that it was time somebody mixed in. I got onto my pinto bronc and loped fer town. But all the way I couldn't think what t' do. So I left Maud standin' outside of Dutchy's, and went over and sit down next Hairoil on the truck. And that's where I was--a-hummin' to myself and a-workin' my haid--when he give me that rakin' over about playin' Cupid, and warned me agin monkeyin' with ole man Sewell.