"I've heard about it often," said Tant Sannie. "And he was the son of the
old doctor that they say died on Christmas-day, but I don't know if that's
true. People do tell such awful lies. Why should he die on Christmas-day
more than any other day?"

"Yes, aunt, why?" said the young man meekly.

"Did you ever have the toothache?" asked Tant Sannie.

"No, aunt."

"Well, they say that doctor--not the son of the old doctor that died on
Christmas-day, the other that didn't come when he was sent for--he gave
such good stuff for the toothache that if you opened the bottle in the room
where any one was bad they got better directly. You could see it was good
stuff," said Tant Sannie; "it tasted horrid. That was a real doctor! He
used to give a bottle so high," said the Boer-woman, raising her hand a
foot from the table, "you could drink at it for a month and it wouldn't get
done, and the same medicine was good for all sorts of sicknesses--croup,
measles, jaundice, dropsy. Now you have to buy a new kind for each
sickness. The doctors aren't so good as they used to be."

"No, aunt," said the young man, who was trying to gain courage to stick out
his legs and clink his spurs together. He did so at last.

Tant Sannie had noticed the spurs before; but she thought it showed a nice
manly spirit, and her heart warmed yet more to the youth.

"Did you ever have convulsions when you were a baby?" asked Tant Sannie.