Under one of these trees the Schoolteacher was at work. A corn shock, unbound, lying on the ground before him. He was on his knees, bareheaded, without a coat, ripping the husk from the ear with a wooden “peg” bound to his middle finger, snapping it at the socket and tossing it out on a heap before him. The ears coming from the Schoolteacher's hands were long, full-grained and of a deep yellow. The two children, Martha and David, were gathering this corn into a split basket and carrying it to a crib made of rails and roofed with clapboards. Near the School-teacher, sitting on his coat spread out on the ground, was the tiny boy who had called to the dog. He was shelling a red ear of corn into the School-teacher's hat. A brush fence inclosed the cornfield. The doctor pulled up in the path beside the fence. The School-teacher arose. He stood bareheaded in the sun under the canopy of darning leaves. He looked past the doctor to the horse, standing with its legs out, its head down. “I understand you're practicin' medicine,” said the doctor. “Your horse is tired,” replied the School-teacher. “There's a law against practicin' medicine without a license,” said the doctor. “Your horse is hungry,” continued the School-teacher. The doctor, riding on, replied with an oath. “You're going to get into trouble,” he said. CHAPTER XIII |EARLY on Monday morning an old man driving a gray mare in a two-wheeled cart came slowly up the road to the schoolhouse. A lank colt followed the mare. The cart was very old, no vestige of paint remained on it, one of the shafts was wrapped with wire, the bottom of the cart, made of small slats, was loose. The man was heavy and the cart creaked. He drove slowly, his big body filling the seat on which for comfort he had placed a folded bedquilt. He stopped in the road below the schoolhouse and got slowly out of the creaking cart. One of his legs was swollen with scrofula, and stiff to the knee. He moved it with difficulty. He left the mare standing in the road, the colt beside her, and came through the grove to the school-house door. The stiff leg gave his heavy body an awkward swing. He supported himself with a stout stick. When he came finally to the school-house, he sat down on the step before the door. He had evidently moved faster than he was accustomed to do, and he remained for a moment breathing heavily, his big bulk covering the step. Then he got a memorandum hook and a pencil out of his pocket. The memorandum book was one of those cheap advertisements of patent medicine which are given away at the country store. It contained a few pages blank on one side and printed with virtues of the medicine on the other. The pencil was a little more pretentious than the ordinary one. It consisted of a tin case containing a long, thin core of purple lead, the end of which could be made to protrude for writing by pressing the thumb on the opposite end of the case.