Song of the Lark | Page 7

the washing was a week behind, and de- ciding what she had better do about it. The arrival of a new baby meant a revision of her entire domestic schedule, and as she drove her needle along she had been working out new sleeping arrangements and cleaning days. The doctor had entered the house without knocking, after making noise enough in the hall to prepare his patients. Thea was reading, her book propped up before her in the sun- light.

"Mustn't do that; bad for your eyes," he said, as Thea shut the book quickly and slipped it under the covers.
Mrs. Kronborg called from her bed: "Bring the baby here, doctor, and have that chair. She wanted him in there for company."
Before the doctor picked up the baby, he put a yellow paper bag down on Thea's coverlid and winked at her. They had a code of winks and grimaces. When he went in to chat with her mother, Thea opened the bag cautiously, trying to keep it from crackling. She drew out a long bunch of white grapes, with a little of the sawdust in which they had been packed still clinging to them. They were called Malaga grapes in Moonstone, and once or twice during the winter the leading grocer got a keg of them. They were used mainly for table decoration, about Christmas-time. Thea had never had more than one grape at a time before. When the doctor came back she was holding the almost transparent fruit up in the sunlight, feeling the pale-green skins softly with the tips of her fingers. She did not thank him; she only snapped her eyes at him in a special way which he understood, and, when he gave her his hand, put it quickly and shyly under her cheek, as if she were trying to do so without knowing it--and without his knowing it.
Dr. Archie sat down in the rocking-chair. "And how's Thea feeling to-day?"
He was quite as shy as his patient, especially when a third person overheard his conversation. Big and hand- some and superior to his fellow townsmen as Dr. Archie was, he was seldom at his ease, and like Peter Kronborg he often dodged behind a professional manner. There was sometimes a contraction of embarrassment and self- consciousness all over his big body, which made him awk- ward--likely to stumble, to kick up rugs, or to knock over chairs. If any one was very sick, he forgot himself, but he had a clumsy touch in convalescent gossip.

Thea curled up on her side and looked at him with pleasure. "All right. I like to be sick. I have more fun then than other times."
"How's that?"
"I don't have to go to school, and I don't have to prac- tice. I can read all I want to, and have good things,"-- she patted the grapes. "I had lots of fun that time I mashed my finger and you wouldn't let Professor Wunsch make me practice. Only I had to do left hand, even then. I think that was mean."
The doctor took her hand and examined the forefinger, where the nail had grown back a little crooked. "You mustn't trim it down close at the corner there, and then it will grow straight. You won't want it crooked when you're a big girl and wear rings and have sweethearts."
She made a mocking little face at him and looked at his new scarf-pin. "That's the prettiest one you ev-ER had. I wish you'd stay a long while and let me look at it. What is it?"
Dr. Archie laughed. "It's an opal. Spanish Johnny brought it up for me from Chihuahua in his shoe. I had it set in Denver, and I wore it to-day for your benefit."
Thea had a curious passion for jewelry. She wanted every shining stone she saw, and in summer she was always going off into the sand hills to hunt for crystals and agates and bits of pink chalcedony. She had two cigar boxes full of stones that she had found or traded for, and she imagined that they were of enormous value. She was always plan- ning how she would have them set.
"What are you reading?" The doctor reached under the covers and pulled out a book of Byron's poems. "Do you like this?"
She looked confused, turned over a few pages rapidly, and pointed to "My native land, good-night." "That," she said sheepishly.
"How about `Maid of Athens'?"

She blushed and looked at him suspiciously. "I like 'There was a sound of revelry,'" she muttered.
The doctor laughed and closed the book. It was clumsily bound in padded leather and had been presented to the Reverend Peter Kronborg by his Sunday-School class as an ornament for his parlor table.
"Come into the office some day, and I'll lend you