I looked out across the river, and calculated how I could fix it so Mrs.
Murphy wouldn't say nothin' outside about that poor kid of mine, and how
to keep the kid hid until me and Marthy could take her and skin out for
the mountains.
Mrs. Murphy was a terrible chatty lady--sort of perpetual phonygraft,
and wholesale and retail news agency. I guessed the best I could do was
to lock her in the cellar and then herd all comers away from the house.
Doc Wolfert didn't bother me any. I knowed _he_ wouldn't give me away.
If anybody could so much as git him to admit that there was a baby born
at my house they would be lucky. Just as a sample of what Doc was like,
take the case of Sandy Sam, who fell down the mine shaft and was brought
up in the bucket, as dead as Adam. Doc was on the ground as soon as
they brought Sandy up, and one of the boys that come late asked Doc what
caused the crowd to congregate.
“Well,” says Doc, lookin' off at an angle into the air, “it looks like
Sandy Sam, or some other feller, fell down the mine shaft.”
“Poor old Sam,” says the feller, “killed him, didn't it?”
Doc looked at the sky and considered.
“It's a remarkable deep shaft,” he says at last; “remarkable deep.”
“Thunder!” says the feller. “I know it's a deep shaft. What I asked you
is if Sam's dead. Is he?”
Doc went off into a dream, and when he come to, he looks at the feller.
“Oh!” he says, absent like. “Is Sam dead? Perhaps! Perhaps he is.
I shouldn't like to say. But,” he ended up, sort of pullin' hisself
together at the finish, “I wouldn't like to express an opinion, but I
guess the boys think he is. They are goin' to bury him.”
So I wasn't afraid of Doc Wolfert blabbin'. I knowed the worst, and,
like everybody else, I wanted somebody to tell me it wasn't so bad as I
thought.
I nailed Doc as he come out. I backed him up against a porch pillar and
conversed with him right there. I wanted to know just how bad it was. I
wanted to know what hope there was, if any.
“Doc,” I said--and I was blessed glad I had a beard so he couldn't see
the quivers in my chin--“she's terrible undersized, ain't she?”
“Hum!” says Doc. “You might call her small or you mightn't. I've seen
'em bigger, and I 've seen 'em smaller. I've seen 'em all sizes.”
I couldn't see much help in that. “Doc,” I said, tremblin', “she won't
always be so--so dwarfed like, will she? She'll grow--some?”
“Probably,” says Doc. “I'd hate to say she wouldn't.”