Dr. Kennicott launched into a heavy, "Oh, these Dutch farmers don't want
sympathy. All they need is a bath and a good dose of salts."

Carol must have flinched, for instantly he was urging, "What I mean
is--I don't want you to think I'm one of these old salts-and-quinine
peddlers, but I mean: so many of my patients are husky farmers that I
suppose I get kind of case-hardened."

"It seems to me that a doctor could transform a whole community, if he
wanted to--if he saw it. He's usually the only man in the neighborhood
who has any scientific training, isn't he?"

"Yes, that's so, but I guess most of us get rusty. We land in a rut of
obstetrics and typhoid and busted legs. What we need is women like you
to jump on us. It'd be you that would transform the town."

"No, I couldn't. Too flighty. I did used to think about doing just that,
curiously enough, but I seem to have drifted away from the idea. Oh, I'm
a fine one to be lecturing you!"

"No! You're just the one. You have ideas without having lost feminine
charm. Say! Don't you think there's a lot of these women that go out for
all these movements and so on that sacrifice----"

After his remarks upon suffrage he abruptly questioned her about
herself. His kindliness and the firmness of his personality enveloped
her and she accepted him as one who had a right to know what she
thought and wore and ate and read. He was positive. He had grown from a
sketched-in stranger to a friend, whose gossip was important news. She
noticed the healthy solidity of his chest. His nose, which had seemed