"Yes, he is a pretty good sort," replied Gordon. "Shouldn't like to meet him if I had came up to your house an' no one round, and he had took a dislike to me." "I should not myself," said Gordon. "But he does not dislike you." "Dogs know me pooty well," said the man. "They ain't no particler likin' for me. Don't want to run and jump an' wag, but they know I mean well, and they mostly let me alone." "Yes, I guess that's so," said Gordon. "Jack would have barked if he had not known you were all right, Joe." "Queer how much they know," said the man reflectively, and a dazed look overspread his dingy face with its cloud of beard. If once he became launched upon a current of reflection, he lost his mental bearings instantly and drifted. "Well, they do know," said Gordon. "Now listen, Joe! You see this bottle. You give your wife a spoonful of the medicine in a glass of water every three hours. Mind, you make it a whole tumbler full of water." "Yes, sir," replied the man. "Of course, you need not wake her up if she gets to sleep," said the doctor, "but every three hours when she is awake." "Yes, sir." The man began fumbling in his pocket, but Gordon stopped him. "No," he said, "put up your pocketbook, Joe. I don't want any money. I get this medicine at wholesale, and it don't cost much." "I come prepared to pay," said the man. He straightened his shoulders and flushed. "Oh, well," said Doctor Gordon, "wait. If you need more medicine, or it seems necessary that I should drive over to see your wife, you can do a little work on my garden in the spring, or you can let me have a bushel of your new potatoes when they are grown next summer, or some apples, and we'll call it square. Wait; I don't want any money for that bottle of medicine to-night anyhow. Did you walk over, Joe?" Joe said that he had walked over. "Aaron might just as well drive you home as not," said Gordon. "The sooner your wife has that medicine the better. How is the baby getting along?" "First-rate. I'd just as soon walk, doctor." For answer Gordon opened the door and called Aaron, and told him to hitch up and take the man home. "Doctor Elliot has gone with the bay," said Aaron. "The teams are about played out, and there's nothin' except the gray." "Take her then." "She looked when I fed her jest now as if she was half a mind to balk at takin' her feed," Aaron remarked doubtfully. "Nonsense! Give her a loose rein, and she'll be all right." Aaron went out grumbling. Gordon offered the man a cigar, which he accepted as if it had been a diamond. "I'll save it up for next Sunday, when I've got a little time to sense it," he said. "I know what your cigars be." Gordon forced another upon him, and the man looked as pleased as a child. Presently a shout was heard, and Gordon opened the office door. "Here's Aaron with the buggy," he said. He stood in the doorway watching, but the gray, instead of balking, went out of the yard with an angry plunge. Gordon shook his head.