"'Wa'al,' he says, 'fust, you step in an' tell her I'm here an' want to see her, and ast her if she won't come right along; an' then you go down to my office an' have these things sent up; an' then,' he says, 'you go down town an' send this'--handin' me a note that he'd wrote an' put in an envelope--'up to the hospital--better send it up with a hack, or, better yet, go yourself,' he says, 'an' hurry. You can't be no use here,' he says. 'I'll stay, but I want a nurse here in an hour, an' less if possible.' I was putty well scared," said David, "by all that, an' I says, 'Lord,' I says, 'is she as bad off as that? What is it ails her?' "'Don't you know?' says the doc, givin' me a queer look. "'No,' I says, 'she hain't ben fust rate fer a spell back, but I couldn't git nothin' out of her what was the matter, an' don't know what pertic'ler thing ails her now, unless it's that dum'd bunnit,' I says. "At that the doctor laughed a little, kind as if he couldn't help it. "'I don't think that was hully to blame,' he says; 'may have hurried matters up a little--somethin' that was liable to happen any time in the next two months.' "'You don't mean it?' I says. "'Yes,' he says. 'Now you git out as fast as you can. Wait a minute,' he says. 'How old is your wife?' "'F'm what she told me 'fore we was married,' I says, 'she's thirty-one.' "'Oh!' he says, raisin' his eyebrows. 'All right; hurry up, now,' "I dusted around putty lively, an' inside of an hour was back with the nurse, an 'jest after we got inside the door--" David paused thoughtfully for a moment and then, lowering his tone a little, "jest as we got inside the front door, a door upstairs opened an' I heard a little 'Waa! waa!' like it was the leetlist kind of a new lamb--an' I tell you," said David, with a little quaver in his voice, and looking straight over the off horse's ears, "nothin' 't I ever heard before nor since ever fetched me, right where I _lived_, as that did. The nurse, she made a dive fer the stairs, wavin' me back with her hand, an' I--wa'al--I went into the settin' room, an--wa'al--ne' mind. "I dunno how long I set there list'nin' to 'em movin' 'round overhead, an' wonderin' what was goin' on; but fin'ly I heard a step on the stair an' I went out into the entry, an' it was Mis' Jones. 'How be they?' I says. "'We don't quite know yet,' she says. 'The little boy is a nice formed little feller,' she says, 'an' them childern very often grow up, but he is _very little_,' she says. "'An' how 'bout my wife?' I says. "'Wa'al,' she says, 'we don't know jest yet, but she is quiet now, an' we'll hope fer the best. If you want me,' she says, 'I'll come any time, night or day, but I must go now. The doctor will stay all night, an' the nurse will stay till you c'n git some one to take her place,' an' she went home, an'," declared David, "you've hearn tell of the 'salt of the earth,' an' if that woman wa'n't more on't than a hoss c'n draw down hill, the' ain't no such thing."