“Yep,” replied the doctor briefly; “I wanted more brandy, for I’m like to catch my death, but I must be about,--she’s dying. She may pull through until morning. Pneumonia--a cold that last bad storm. She lay out in the field half the night. She’s done it a hundred times when they harried her; this time it’s killed her. She’s not twenty.” Caleb reached for his hat. “I’m going with you,” he said simply. Dr. Cheyney threw him one of his shrewd looks. “Afraid to trust me alone in the wet?” he asked dryly. Caleb smiled. “To tell you the truth I was thinking of Sammy. The poor little dirty beggar appeals to me, he’s thoroughly boy, in spite of his curious clothes, and Zeb is a drunken brute.” The doctor grunted and went out, making room for Caleb at his side in the buggy. “I’m going to send Sammy to St. Vincent’s,” he said. “Poor Sammy!” said Caleb. The doctor clucked, and old Henk moved off, splashing through muddy water up to his fetlocks. The road was dark, and the doctor had swung a lantern between the back-wheels, a custom dear to rural communities; it swung there, casting a dismal flare under the buggy, which looked like a huge lightning-bug, with fire at its tail. “Good enough for him!” continued the doctor bluntly, referring to Sammy and the foundling asylum. “Plenty,” assented Caleb, unmoved. This angered the doctor, as Caleb knew it would. “Little brat!” growled William Cheyney fiercely, “what was he born for? Foundling asylum, of course!” “Of course,” agreed Caleb, and smiled in the darkness. “Damn!” said the doctor. They traveled on through the night; the wind swept the boughs down, and the rain drove in their faces even under the hood. “I can’t take him, drat it!” the old man broke out again fiercely. “I’ve boarded for sixty years; women are varmints, good women, I mean, and the Colfaxes wouldn’t take Sammy for a day to save his soul; he’s a child of shame.” Caleb laughed silently; he felt the doctor’s towering wrath. “After all, wouldn’t it be a purgatory for a small boy to live with the Colfaxes?” he asked. “Yep,” said the doctor, “it would. Miss Maria pins papers over the cracks in the parlor blinds to keep the carpet from fading, and Miss Lucinda dusts my office twice a day, for which she ought to be hung! I reckon they’d make divided skirts for Sammy and a frilled nightgown.” “There are the Children’s Guardians in the city,” suggested Caleb thoughtfully. “There’s the Reform School,” retorted the doctor bitingly. Meanwhile old Henk traveled on, gaining in speed, for part of the road was on his way home and he coveted the flesh-pots of Egypt. The splashing of his feet in the mire kept time with the sob of the gale. Nearer and nearer drew the light in Jean Bartlett’s window.