Christian fiction; City and town life -- Fiction; Clergy -- Fiction; Ozark Mountains -- Fiction
Dan went to the window overlooking the garden. The nurse was still there,
helping crippled Denny with his work. The minister's hoe was leaning
against the big rock, as he had left it when he had caught up his coat.
Should he go down? What would she say if he were to tell her of the
Elders' mission?
Something caused Miss Farwell to look up just then and she saw him. She
beckoned to him playfully, guardedly, like a schoolgirl. Smiling, he
shook his head. He could not go.
More than ever, then, he felt very much alone.
CHAPTER XXII.
AS DR. HARRY SEES IT
"Thus Dr. Harry presented another side of the problem to his bewildered
friend--a phase of the question commonly ignored by every fiery reformer,
whose particular reformation is the one--the only way."
The friendship between Dan and Dr. Abbott had grown rapidly, as was
natural, for the two men had much in common. In a town as small as
Corinth, there are many opportunities for even the busiest men to meet,
and scarcely a day passed that the doctor and the preacher did not
exchange greetings, at least. As often as their duties permitted they
were together; sometimes at the office or in Dan's rooms; again, of an
evening, at Harry's home; or driving miles across country behind the bay
mare or big Jim--the physician to see a patient, and the minister to be
the "hitchin' post."
Harry was just turning from the telephone that evening when Dan entered
the house.
"Hello, parson!" he cried heartily. "I was just this minute trying to get
you. I couldn't think of anything to do to anybody else, so I thought I'd
have a try at you. That wasn't such a bad guess either," he added, when
he had a good look at his friend's face. "You evidently need to have
something fixed. What is it, liver?" He led the way into the library.
"Not mine," said Dan shortly. "I don't believe I have one."
He pushed an arm chair to face the doctor's favorite seat by the table.
Harry chuckled as he reached for his pipe and tobacco. "You don't need to
have one yourself in order to suffer from liver troubles. Speaking
professionally, my opinion is that you preachers, as a class, are more
likely to suffer from other people's livers than from your own, though
it is also true that the average parson has more of his own than he knows
what to do with."
"And what do you doctors prescribe when it is the other fellow's?" asked
Dan.
The other struck a match. "Oh, there's a difference of opinion in the
profession. The old Doctor, for instance, pins his faith to a split
bamboo with a book of flies or a can of bait."
"And you?" Dan was smiling now.
The answer came through a cloud of smoke. "Just a pipe and a book."
Dan's smile vanished. "I fear your treatment would not agree with my
constitution," he said grimly. "My system does not permit me to use the
remedy you prescribe."
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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