“Simply that I’m poor!” Elijah exploded. “Poor as Job’s turkey, same as always. I’d been working in Pock’s store all last year, but then I got a chance to sell subscription books with a Boston publisher. It’s an atlas of the world and a household medical cyclopedia and A Thousand And One Gems of Poesy, all in a uniform binding, stamped with genuine gold leaf, one dollar and forty cents the volume, or the three for three dollars and a quarter. I’ve been riding around with Doc, driving for him, and then canvassing while he was busy with patients. Did pretty well, too, but since Doc burned himself I’ve had to go in and ladle medicines and help him with pills and things.”

Dan said, “No more chance with the books, then?”

“Not much. Doc is paying me. That is—he owes me the whole amount, to date.”

“He can pay you now I settled our account with him just a few minutes ago. Get your money before he spends it all on canary cages or patent rocking-chairs.”

“I’ll dun him within the hour,” Elijah said. They both laughed, then sobered at the quick remembrance of what lay in the parlor downstairs.

Dan said, “It will always be a mystery how my grandfather ever let Doc come within a league of him. Grandfather had a horror of people with spots on their clothing.”

“Doc is pretty spotty,” nodded Elijah.

There seemed to be a mutual recognition of the fact that whereas once they had been close friends, circumstances precluded an instantaneous revival of the relationship. They would extend alternate tendrils, grasping willingly at them, tugging at the tendrils to discover whether or not they were strong enough, and perhaps at last trusting their full weight to the viny fabric which would be woven between them.

“Come on back to the spare room,” Dan said. “I’ve got to search for some clothes.” He thrust his legs into the wrinkled trousers which had served him on the journey and, bare-armed, opened the door into the hall. Tenderly Elijah placed his hat—evidently his only one—on the bed, and followed.

Doctor Duffey downstairs; he and Mrs. Wurke were in the dining room … “but just because they’re advertised in the newspapers, with poetry and what-not, doesn’t make it a fact that Hostetter’s bitters are…” Someone rapped at the side door; abruptly Duffey ceased speaking; they heard the limping tread of Mrs. Wurke. Dan stopped and listened. “It’s old Mrs. Knouse,” he said, and went on to a blue-painted door. “This is it. Or used to be.”