outlying ranch.

As the three girls, arms linked, loitered across the square, Dr. Ben
Scott--who was Rose Ransome's mother's cousin and was regarded as an
uncle--came out of the Court House and walked toward his buggy. The
dreaming white mare roused as she heard his voice, and the old
brown-and-white setter sprang into the seat beside him.

"Howdy, girls!" said the old man, his big loose figure bulging
grotesquely over the boundaries of the seat. "Father pretty well?"

"Well enough, Doc' Ben, but not pretty!" Martie said, laughing. The
doctor's eyes twinkled.

"They put a tongue in your head, Martie, sure enough!" he said,
gathering up the reins.

"It was all they did put, then!" Martie giggled.

The girls all liked Doc' Ben. A widower, rich enough now to take
only what practice he pleased, simple in his tastes, he lived with
his old servant, his horse and cow, his dog and cat, chickens and
bees, pigeons and rabbits, in a comfortable, shabby establishment in
an unfashionable part of town. Monroe described him as a "regular
character." His jouncing, fat figure--with tobacco ash spilled on
his spotted vest, and stable mud on his high-laced boots--was
familiar in all her highways and byways. His mellow voice, shot with
humorous undertones even when he was serious, touched with equal
readiness upon Plato, the habits of bees, the growth of fungus,
fashions, Wordsworth, the Civil War, or the construction of