When they had started homeward they looked at each other, the doctor with a smile in his eyes--he had encountered this sort of thing so often in his professional life that he was quite accustomed to it. But Mary's brown eyes were serious. "John," she said, "when will the reign of ignorance and superstition end?" "When Time shall be no more, my dear." "So it seems. Those people, while lacking education, seem to be fairly intelligent and yet their lives are dominated by things like these." "Yes, and not only people of fair intelligence but of fair education too. While they would laugh at what we saw and heard back there they are holding fast to things equally senseless and ridiculous. Then there are thoroughly educated and cultured people holding fast to little superstitions which had their birth in ignorance away back in the past somewhere. How many people do you know who want to see the new moon over the left shoulder? And didn't I hear you commanding Jack just the other day to take the hoe right out of the house and to go out the same door he came in?" "O, ye-es, but then _nobody_ wants to have a _hoe_ carried through the house, John. It's such a bad sign--" The doctor laughed. "This thing is so widespread there seems to be no hope of eliminating it entirely though I believe physicians are doing more than anybody else toward crushing it out." "Can they reason and argue people out of these things?" "Not often. Good-natured ridicule is an effective shaft and one I like to turn upon them sometimes. They get so they don't want to say those things to me, and so perhaps they get to see after a while that it is just as well not to say them too often to other people, too." "Don't drive so fast, John, the day is too glorious." Yellow butterflies flitted hither and thither down the road; the corn in the fields was turning brown and out from among it peeped here and there a pumpkin; the trees in apple orchards were bending low with their rosy and golden treasures. They passed a pool of water and saw reflected there the purple asters blooming above it. By and by the doctor turned down a grassy road leading up to a farmhouse a short distance away. "Are you to make another call today?" asked his wife. "Yes, there is a very sick child here." When he had gone inside three or four children came out. A curly-headed little girl edged close and looked up into Mary's face. "Miss' Blank, _you_ know where Mr. Blank got our baby, _don't_ you?" Mary, smiling down at the little questioner, said, "The doctor didn't tell me anything about it." The little faces looked surprised and disappointed. "We thought you'd know an' we come out to ask you," said another little girl. "You make all the babies' dresses, don't you?" "Dear me, no indeed!" laughed the doctor's wife. "Does he keep all the babies at your house?" asked the little boy. "I think not. I never see them there." "Didn't he ever bring any to your house?" "Oh, yes, five of them."