He had a fancy that something cool and kind was licking his hand....
It felt like the tongue of a friendly dog. He seemed to have been
dreaming about dogs. Something soft and cold lay on his head. It felt
like a wet handkerchief ... the pain had dulled to a slow throbbing ...
if he opened his eyes he would know who licked his hand and what it was
that lay upon his head ... on the other hand, opening his eyes might
bring back the pain. It seemed hardly worth the risk ... still, he would
very much like to know--
Without being able to decide the question, he fell asleep.
When he awoke, his head was clear and the pain was gone. He felt no
longer unbearably tired, but only comfortably weary, deliciously drowsy.
Had he been at home in his own bed he would have turned over and gone
cheerfully to sleep again. As it was, he opened his eyes with a zestful
sense of curiosity.
He was lying, very easily, upon soft grass. Above him spread the thick
greenery of a giant maple; his head rested upon a cushion and close
beside him, with comforting nose thrust into his open palm, lay a
ferocious-looking bull pup. The pup grinned with delight at his
tentative pat; barked fiercely, and then grinned again as if to say,
"Don't mind me, it's only my fun!"
There was a noise somewhere, a loud, cheerful noise--the noise of
children playing. Not one child, nor two, but children--lots of them!
This was perplexing; and another perplexing thing was the nearness of a
white stoop which led up to the door of a white building; neither stoop
nor building had he ever seen before. Again the dog barked, loudly, and
as if in answer to the bark, the door above the stoop opened and a young
girl came out. She cast a casual glance at him as he lay under the tree,
and, settling herself daintily upon the white steps, opened a small
basket and took from it a serviceable square of white damask and a
lettuce sandwich. He could see the lettuce, crisp and green, peeping out
at the edges.
At the sight, he was conscious of a strange sensation; an almost
forgotten feeling to which, for the moment, he could put no name.
And then, as the girl bit into the sandwich, illumination came. He was
_hungry_! But what an unkind, inconsiderate girl!--Another bite and the
sandwich would be gone--
"I am awake," he suggested meekly.
"So Buster said." The girl smiled approvingly at the dog. "Good Buster!
You may come off guard, sir. Run away and get your lunch."
With a delighted bark for thanks the bull pup trotted away. Callandar's
sense of injury deepened. The girl had begun upon a second sandwich.
Perhaps there were only two!
"Are you hungry, Mr. Tramp?" asked the girl innocently.
"I think," he said, pausing in order to give his words full weight, "I
am starving!" Then, as the blissful meaning of this first feeling of
healthy hunger dawned upon him, he added solemnly: "Thank the Lord!"
"Yes?" There was a cool edge of surprise in the girl's voice. She
proceeded thoughtfully with the second sandwich.
"Yes. Hunger is a beautiful thing, a priceless possession. Money cannot
buy it, skill cannot command it. The price of hunger is far
above rubies."
The girl looked down upon him and smiled. It was such a dear little
smile that for a moment its recipient forgot about the disappearing
sandwich.
"I am so glad," she said warmly, "that you feel like that!"
There was a slight pause. "Because," she went on, finishing the last
bite of the second sandwich, "until now I had always thought that hunger
wasn't a bit nice. Unless, of course, one has the power to gratify it."
"Fortunately," said Callandar a little stiffly, "I have that power."
The girl raised her eyebrows. They were long and straight and black, and
she raised them charmingly. But she was a most unkind and heartless
girl, for all that. Never while he lived would he ask her for a
sandwich. With a comfortable feeling of security his hand felt for his
well-filled pocketbook. It was gone!
"By Jove!"
Stronger ejaculation seemed forbidden by the Presence on the steps. He
tapped all his pockets carefully. The pocketbook was in none of
them--and he had used the last cent of loose change for a glass of milk
for breakfast.
"I suppose," the girl had apparently not noticed his sudden
discomfiture, "that you mean you have money? But the nearest place where
money would be of use is Coombe, and Coombe is a full mile away. It is
a pity that my principles, and the principles of the school-board,
should be all against the feeding of tramps. Otherwise I might offer you
a sandwich."
"You might," bitterly, "but I doubt it!"
"Even now, putting the school-board aside, I might offer you one if you
were to ask prettily and to apologise to me for making rather a fool of
me this morning over there by the pump!"
The pump! Why, of course, the pump! It all came back to him now--the
pump, the avenging angel! (Had this been the avenging angel?) The
avenging dog!--Oh, heaven, was _that_ the avenging dog?
He burst into a boyish shout of laughter.
"There are only two sandwiches left," she warned him. The doctor stopped
laughing.
"Oh, please!" he said.
There was something very pleasant about him when he used that tone; a
persuasive charm, a trace of command. The girl liked it--and passed
a sandwich.
"Anyway it was you who took for granted that I was a tramp," he smiled
at her. "If I remember rightly I was hardly in a condition to contradict
you. Not but that it was a natural conclusion. I am curious to know why
you changed your mind."
"Oh! as soon as you fainted I knew. Tramps don't faint!"
"Not ever?"
"Well--hardly ever! And besides--look at your hands!"
The doctor looked, and blushed.
"Dirty?" he ventured.
"Not half dirty enough! And it wasn't only your hands. I noticed--oh!
lots of things!" For no perceptible reason a tiny blush fluttered
across the whiteness of her face like a roseleaf chased by the wind. The
pleasure of watching it made the doctor forget to answer, and the
girl went on:
"I know lots more about you than that you aren't a tramp. I know what
you are. You are a doctor!" triumphantly.
"A Daniel come to judgment!"
"Yes, a Daniel! Only I wouldn't have been quite so sure if you hadn't
dropped this out of your pocket." With a gleeful laugh she held up a
clinical thermometer.
The doctor laughed also. "Men have been hanged on less evidence than
that," he admitted. "All the same I don't know where it came from. Some
one must have judged me capable of wanting to take my own temperature.
Anything else?"
"Only general deductions. You are a doctor, you are going to
Coombe--deduction, you are the doctor who is going to buy out Dr.
Simmonds's practice."
Callandar scrambled up from his pillow with a look of delighted surprise
on his face.
"Why--so I am!" he exclaimed.
"You say that as if you had just found it out."
"Well, er--you see I had forgotten it--temporarily. My head, you know."
The suspicion in the girl's eyes melted into sympathy. "I suppose you
know," she said with quite a motherly air, "that old Doc. Simmonds
hasn't really any practice to sell?"
"No? That's bad. Hasn't he even a little one? You see" (the sympathy had
been so pleasant that he felt he could do with a little more of it), "I
could hardly manage a big one just now. As you may have noticed, my
health is rather rocky. Got to lay up and all that--so it's just as
well that old Simpkins' practice is on the ragged edge."
"The name is Simmonds, not Simpkins," coldly.
"Well, I didn't buy the name with the practice. My own name is
Callandar. Much nicer, don't you think?"
"I don't know. A well-known name is rather a handicap."
This time the doctor was genuinely surprised.
"A handicap? What do you mean?"
"People will be sure to compare you with your famous namesake, Dr.
Callandar, of Montreal. Everyone you meet," with a mischievous smile,
"will say, 'Callandar--ah! no relation to Dr. Henry Callandar of
Montreal, I suppose?' And then they will look sympathetic and you will
want to slap them."
"Dear me! I never thought of that! I had no idea that the Montreal man
would be known up here. In the cities, perhaps, but not here."
The girl raised her straight black brows in a way which expressed
displeasure at his slighting tone.
"You are mistaken," she said briefly. "I must go now. It is time to ring
the bell. The children are running wild."
For the first time the doctor began to take an intelligent interest in
his surroundings, and saw that the tree, the white stoop and the small
white building were situated in a little, quiet oasis separated by a low
fence from the desert of a large yard containing the red pump. On the
other side of the fence was pandemonium!
"Why, it's a school!" he exclaimed.
The school-mistress arose, daintily flicking the crumbs from her white
piqué skirt.
"District No. 15. The largest attendance of any in the county. I really
must ring the bell." She flicked another invisible crumb. "I hope," she
added slowly, "that I haven't discouraged you."
"Oh, no! not at all. Quite the contrary. It seems unfortunate about the
name, but perhaps I can live it down. It isn't as if I were just out of
college, you know.--In fact," as if the thought had just come to him,
"do I not seem to you to be a little old for--to be making a
fresh start?"
The girl's eyes looked at him very kindly. It was quite evident that she
thought she understood the situation perfectly. "I shouldn't worry about
that, if I were you," she said. "Young doctors are often no use at all.
A great many people _prefer_ doctors to be older! I know, you see, for
my father was a doctor. He was Dr. Coombe; for many years he was the
only doctor here, the only doctor that counted," with a pretty air of
pride. "The town was named after his father-I am Esther Coombe."
The doctor acknowledged the introduction with a bow and a quick smile of
gratitude.
"You are really very kind, Miss Coombe," he said. "If--if I should take
Dr. Spifkin's practice, I hope I may see you sometimes. It is not far
from here, is it, to the town--pump?"
Esther laughed. "No, but I do not live out here. I only teach here. We
live in town, or almost in. You will pass the house on the way to the
hotel. But before you go--" with a gleeful smile she handed him his lost
pocketbook--"this fell out of your coat when I pull--helped you under
the tree. I should have given it to you before, but I wanted you to
understand just how far the blessing of hunger depends upon one's power
to gratify it."
They laughed together with a splendid sense of comradeship; then with a
startled "I really must ring the bell!" she turned and ran up the steps.
Smilingly he watched her disappear, waiting musingly until a sudden
furious ringing told him that school was called.