For twenty years Dr. Fenton's old high-seated buggy had jogged over
the same daily course. It started at nine o'clock and passed with
never-varying regularity up one street and down another. When any one
was ill a sentinel was placed at the gate to hail the doctor, who was
as sure to pass as the passenger-train. It was a familiar joke in
Clayton that the buggy had a regular track, and that the wheels always
ran in the same rut. Once, when Carter Nelson had taken too much
egg-nog and his aunt thought he had spinal meningitis, the usual route
had been reversed, and again when the blacksmith's triplets were born.
But these were especial occasions. It was a matter for investigation
when the doctor's buggy went over the bridge before noon.

"Anybody sick out this way?" asked the miller.

The doctor stopped the buggy to explain.

He was a short, fat man dressed in a suit of Confederate gray. The
hand that held the reins was minus two fingers, his willing
contribution to the Lost Cause, which was still to him the great
catastrophe of all history. His whole personality was a bristling
arsenal of prejudices. When he spoke it was in quick, short volleys,
in a voice that seemed to come from the depths of a megaphone.

"Strange boy sick at Judge Hollis's. How's trade?"

"Fair to middlin'," answered the miller. "Do you reckon that there boy
has got anything ketchin'?"

"Catching?" repeated the doctor savagely. "What if he has?" he
demanded. "Two epidemics of typhoid, two of yellow fever, and one of