“Ain't her head a little off shape, Doc?” I stammered out. I guess the
shape of the head had worried me most of all. It wasn't just what I'd
known good heads to be.
“You think so?” asked Doc, absent like.
“Don't you?” I went back at him.
“Tell me straight. I can stand the worst.”
“Hum!” he says. “Heads differ. I've got to go--”
“No you don't!” I says, backing him up against the post; “not till
you tell me. Her legs, now. Think they will ever straighten out? Think
she'll ever git over that red, scalded look? Think she'll ever be able
to talk, Doc?”
Doc looked anxious toward the road.
“Don't worry,” he says. “Don't fret. Keep cool and ca'm.”
“Yes,” I says, scornful like. “Me keep cool! Don't you know I'm that
poor little, bent-up kid's daddy? Don't you know I looked forward
to callin' her Edith L.? Don't you know--? Doc,” I says, strong and
forcible, “money ain't no object in a case like this. Tell me this:
Shall I git a specialist? Would it do any good to send to Denver and
git a specialist, or Chicago, or New York?” Doc looked interested at the
horizon.
“Why, no,” he says, “no! I don't see that it would.”
I'll bet that that was the first time Doc ever said “No” straight out.
It settled me. I let go of his arm and sat right down. If Doc Wolfert
spoke up and said “No” I knew there wasn't nothing to be done.
I sat there probably about a thousand years, if you count by feelin's.
I had a wish to go in and see the kid, and then, again, I hated to.
I hated for Mrs. Murphy to look at me; I felt I'd blubber, and I was
ashamed; but I knew I'd ought to be there to take Marthy's hand when she
woke up, and to lie to her about it not bein' so bad as she would think.
That made me pull myself together. I made up my mind that I'd be a man,
anyway. I had Marthy to think of, and a man ain't made to be blubberin'
around when his women need help. I swallowed down the chunk of my neck
that had got stuck in my throat, and swiped my eyes, and stood on my
legs. When I turned, Mrs. Murphy was in the door.
“Well,” she says, “you don't take much interest, I must say. Here you
sit enjoyin' the landscape, and your daughter askin' where her father
has gone to, and is she an orphan or what. Come in,” she says, “or
she'll be comin' out.”