Conscious of little that the old man was saying, Henley passed on into the dimly lighted farm-house, experiencing a vague sense of relief that he was not just then to face his wife.
One evening shortly after this Henley was returning from the store about an hour later than was his custom. He was nearing Dixie Hart's cottage, when, in the clear moonlight, he saw the girl emerge from the little apple-orchard behind her barn and come rapidly toward him. Her glance was on the ground, and she had evidently not seen him. As she drew near where he stood waiting, he noted that her head was bare, and that she had a medicine-bottle in her hand. He noted, too, from her gait and hurried manner, that she was greatly disturbed. She was about to pass him when he called out, cheerily, "Where away, in such a hurry?"
"Oh!" She looked up and stopped. "You scared me, Alfred. I couldn't imagine who it was. I'm going over to Sam Pitman's. Joe is sick--powerful sick. If I am any judge, it is pneumonia, and a bad case at that."
"Pneumonia!" he echoed, aghast. "I didn't know anything was wrong with him."
"It's been coming on some time," she said. "He caught an awful cold. You know the day it rained so hard and the creek got out of banks? I was trying to cross the ford below Pitman's in my wagon. I thought I could make it all right, but the current washed the wagon in a hole, and old Bob couldn't touch bottom. The wagon was floating like a boat, and he finally got stuck in the mud with just his head and neck out and couldn't budge. Joe was digging sprouts in the field on the right-hand side, and ran down to me. I yelled at him not to come in, but he struck out toward me with his clothes on, swimming like a dog. He got to me and helped me out in the water on a high place, and made me stand there while he worked and tugged at the trace-chains for twenty minutes till he finally unhitched Bob and pulled him out of the mire. Then he helped me out and dragged the wagon ashore."
"But he's getting paid for it," Dixie said, bitterly. "He got overheated in the cold mountain-water, and he is in a bad fix, Alfred. I know when a sick person is dangerous, and he is."
She was moving on toward Pitman's now, and Henley was keeping step by her side. "You mustn't take it so hard," he said, in an effort to calm her. "It will come out all right."