"Has the Doctor come back from the City this soon?" demanded the
singer lady, with a queer thump in her cardiac region that almost
smothered her voice.

"Well now, to tell the truth, Tom Mayberry haven't been to no City,"
answered his mother with a chuckle as she looked at Miss Wingate
over Martin Luther's head on her shoulder where he had buried it
with a demand for "milk, milk, thank ma'am, please." "I don't think
he wants you to know what he have been having happen to him, but I
can't keep from telling you 'cause I'm tickled clean to my funny
bone. Dave Hanks come over here at daylight wanting a doctor quick,
and I had a cramp in my leg what I forgot to tie a yarn string
around before I went to bed, so I had to let Tom hurry on over there
'count of the push they was in. Then I got to studying it over and
while I knewed how Tom had had a lot of practice in such things in a
hospital, I thought it was just as well to let him get a little
Harpeth experience along that line and sorter prove his character to
Squire Tutt and the rest. About dinner time, though, I got sorry for
him and hitched up and went over there to see how they was a-getting
along, without telling you or Cindy anything about it. And what did
I find? That Tom Mayberry and Dave Hanks out on the back porch, Dave
taking a drink outen a bottle and Tom with two babies wrapped up in
a shawl showing 'em to a neighbor woman, proud as a peacock over
'em. He most dropped 'em when he seen me and I promised not to tell
you about it at all, but if you coulder seen him!" And the tried and
proven young AEsculapius' mother fairly rolled in her chair with
mirth at the recollection.

"Oh," gasped the singer girl, as she sank weakly down upon the top