Dan hung the scythe on a peg under the stable eaves and came across the lawn, rubbing a soaked forearm over his face. His undershirt was drenched and soggy. “I thought I’d take down all the grass in the back lot. There’ll be goldenrod later if I don’t, and Mrs. Knouse suffers from hay fever.”

“Sure,” the doctor nodded, “and not a bit of it the fault of your weed patch.” His bright eyes rolled up for a scant second, then vanished again under crusty lids. “I’ve observed that a man can find excuse enough for driving his body to torment when his soul’s in the same place.”

Dan stopped, with his fingers clutching the pump handle. He asked, “What are you hinting, Doc?”

“You’ve been bothered to death. Anybody could see that.”

“I’ll thank them not to see it.”

“Go on, and draw me a bit of a drink.”

Bale’s lips squeezed together. The pump groaned and gurgled. Water came up through its suction with tardy reluctance, rising nearly to the spout, grunting spasmodically down again, and lifting at last with surrendering spurts. Duffey put his cupped hands out and dashed the water over his face. “That’s good,” he gasped. “I can’t be saying as much for the rest of the day. This is the first good I’ve found in it.”

Dan kept the pump handle moving; he bent down and sucked a mouthful of water from the spout, then spurted it out into the grass.

“Katie Huffmaster,” the old man said, as if in continuation, “she was run away with, you’ll remember.”

Bale sat upon the well-curb. “Yes. The horse was frightened by the locomotive.”

“A young horse, a bad one, and they should never have let her take him out alone. Poor child.” He droned it softly, over and over. “Poor child, and she’s got a right femur shattered. I’m fearing she will be a cripple for life, even if I save her the leg. I started with Smith’s anterior splint, and changed to Hodgen’s apparatus, without extension. Now I’ve got her in a fracture box filled with bran, poor child … It’s hot this day. Dan. Too hot. I sometimes wish—”

Abruptly, he ceased speaking and began to pat his damp temples with a wad of handkerchief. Bale clenched his fist loosely and stared at the tiny pearls of sweat which hung between his knuckles. “What do you sometimes wish?”

“In the future, there’ll be things to do. Things better than Hodgen’s or Smith’s way, or stinking boxes of bran. Praise Peter, and I’d like to see the day. And no more wars,” he added. “Dan, the wars will be done.”

Bale laughed scornfully.