"I know enough to know there's mighty little the matter with _you_." He turned to one of the women. "I would like to see her mother," he said. The mother had left the room on an errand; the woman rose and went out. There was a pause which Mary broke by asking the baby's name. "We think we'll call her Orient." "Why not Occident?" thought Mary, but she kept still. Not so the doctor. "_That's_ no name. Give her a good sensible _name_--one she won't be ashamed of when she's a woman." Here Mary caught sight of a red string around the baby's neck, and asked if it was a charm of some sort. The mother took hold of the string and drew up the charm. "It's a blind hog's tooth," she said simply, "to make her cut her teeth easy." The mother of the patient came into the room. "How do you think she is, Doctor?" "Oh, she's not so sick as you thought she was, not near." The mother looked relieved. "She had an awful bad spell last night. Do you think she won't have any more?" "No, she won't have any more." The look on the patient's face said plainly, "We'll see about that." It did not escape the doctor. "But in case you should see any signs of a spell coming on, and if she gets so she can't speak again, then you must--but come into the next room," he said in a low voice. They went into an adjoining room, the doctor taking care to leave the door ajar. Then in a voice ostensibly low enough that the patient might not hear and yet so distinct that she could hear every word, he delivered his instructions: "Now, if she has any more spells she must be blistered all the way from her neck down to the end of her spine." The mother looked terrified. "And if she gets so she can't speak again, it will be necessary to put a seton through the back of her neck." "What _is_ a seton?" faltered the woman. "Oh, it's nothing but a big needle six or eight inches long, threaded with coarse cord. It must be drawn through the flesh and left there for a while." Then in a tone so low that only the mother could hear, he said, "Don't pay much attention to her. She'll never have those spells unless there is somebody around to see her." He walked into the other room and took up his hat and case. "I left some powders on the table," he said to the mother. "You may give her one just before dinner and another tonight." "Will it make any difference if she doesn't take it till tonight?" "Not a bit." "Pa's gone and I didn't 'low to git any dinner today." At this announcement Mary heard something between a sigh and a groan and turning, saw a rosy-cheeked boy in the doorway. There was a look of resigned despair on his face and Mary smiled sympathetically at him as she went out. How many lads and lassies could have sympathized with him too, having been victims to that widespread feeling among housewives that when "Pa" is gone no dinner need be got and sometimes not much supper.