Sowing Seeds in Danny | Page 9

went down and, peeping over
the doctor's shoulder, he smiled and chattered and asked for his
"daddy" and his "mathar."
Then Big John broke down utterly and tried to speak his gratitude, but
the doctor abruptly told him to quit his blubbering and hitch up, for
little Murdock would be chasing the hens again in a week or two.
The doctor went faithfully every day and dressed little Murdock's
wound until it no longer needed his care, remaining perfectly sober
meanwhile. Hope sprang up in Mary's heart--for love believeth all
things.
At night when he went to bed and she carefully locked the doors and
took the keys to her room, she breathed a sigh of relief. One more day
won!
But alas for Mary's hopes! They were built upon the slipping, sliding
sands of human desire. One night she found him in the office of the
hotel; a red-faced, senseless, gibbering old man, arguing theology with
a brother Scotchman, who was in the same condition of mellow
exhilaration.
Mary's white face as she guided her father through the door had an
effect upon the men who sat around the office. Kind-hearted fellows
they were, and they felt sorry for the poor little motherless girl, sorry
for "old Doc" too. One after another they went home, feeling just a
little ashamed.
The bartender, a new one from across the line, a dapper chap with
diamonds, was indignant. "I'll give that old man a straight pointer," he
said, "that his girl has to stay out of here. This is no place for women,

anyway"--which is true, God knows.
Five years went by and Mary Barner lived on in the lonely house and
did all that human power could do to stay her father's evil course. But
the years told heavily upon him. He had made some fatal mistakes in
his prescribing, and the people had been compelled to get in another
doctor, though a great many of those who had known him in his best
days still clung to the "old man" in spite of his drinking. They could not
forget how he had fought with death for them and for their children.
Of all his former skill but little remained now except his wonderful
presence in the sick-room.
He could still inspire the greatest confidence and hope. Still at his
coming a sick man's fears fell away from him, and in their stead came
hope and good cheer. This was the old man's good gift that even his
years of sinning could not wholly destroy. God had marked him for a
great physician.
CHAPTER III
THE PINK LADY
When Mrs. Francis decided to play the Lady Bountiful to the Watson
family, she not only ministered to their physical necessity but she
conscientiously set about to do them good, if they would be done good
to. Mrs. Francis's heart was kind, when you could get to it; but it was so
deeply crusted over with theories and reflections and abstract truths that
not very many people knew that she had one.
When little Danny's arms were thrown around her neck, and he called
her his dear sweet, pink lady, her pseudo-intellectuality broke down
before a power which had lain dormant. She had always talked a great
deal of the joys of motherhood, and the rapturous delights of
mother-love. Not many of the mothers knew as much of the proper care
of an infant during the period of dentition as she. She had read papers at
mothers' meetings, and was as full of health talks as a school
physiology.

But it was the touch of Danny's soft cheek and clinging arms that
brought to her the rapture that is so sweet it hurts, and she realised that
she had missed the sweetest thing in life. A tiny flame of real love
began to glimmer in her heart and feebly shed its beams among the
debris of cold theories and second-hand sensations that had filled it
hitherto.
She worried Danny with her attentions, although he tried hard to put up
with them. She was the lady of his dreams, for Pearl's imagination had
clothed her with all the virtues and graces.
Hers was a strangely inconsistent character, spiritually minded, but
selfish; loving humanity when it is spelled with a capital, but knowing
nothing of the individual. The flower of holiness in her heart was like
the haughty orchid that blooms in the hothouse, untouched by wind or
cold, beautiful to behold but comforting no one with its beauty.
Pearl Watson was like the rugged little anemone, the wind flower that
lifts its head from the cheerless prairie. No kind hand softens the heat
or the cold, nor tempers the wind, and yet the very winds that blow
upon it and the hot sun that beats