Up the Hill and Over | Page 5

you aren't a tramp. I know what
you are. You are a doctor!" triumphantly.
"A Daniel come to judgment!"
"Yes, a Daniel! Only I wouldn't have been quite so sure if you hadn't
dropped this out of your pocket." With a gleeful laugh she held up a
clinical thermometer.
The doctor laughed also. "Men have been hanged on less evidence than
that," he admitted. "All the same I don't know where it came from.
Some one must have judged me capable of wanting to take my own
temperature. Anything else?"
"Only general deductions. You are a doctor, you are going to
Coombe--deduction, you are the doctor who is going to buy out Dr.
Simmonds's practice."
Callandar scrambled up from his pillow with a look of delighted
surprise on his face.
"Why--so I am!" he exclaimed.
"You say that as if you had just found it out."
"Well, er--you see I had forgotten it--temporarily. My head, you
know."
The suspicion in the girl's eyes melted into sympathy. "I suppose you
know," she said with quite a motherly air, "that old Doc. Simmonds
hasn't really any practice to sell?"
"No? That's bad. Hasn't he even a little one? You see" (the sympathy
had been so pleasant that he felt he could do with a little more of it), "I

could hardly manage a big one just now. As you may have noticed, my
health is rather rocky. Got to lay up and all that--so it's just as well that
old Simpkins' practice is on the ragged edge."
"The name is Simmonds, not Simpkins," coldly.
"Well, I didn't buy the name with the practice. My own name is
Callandar. Much nicer, don't you think?"
"I don't know. A well-known name is rather a handicap."
This time the doctor was genuinely surprised.
"A handicap? What do you mean?"
"People will be sure to compare you with your famous namesake, Dr.
Callandar, of Montreal. Everyone you meet," with a mischievous smile,
"will say, 'Callandar--ah! no relation to Dr. Henry Callandar of
Montreal, I suppose?' And then they will look sympathetic and you will
want to slap them."
"Dear me! I never thought of that! I had no idea that the Montreal man
would be known up here. In the cities, perhaps, but not here."
The girl raised her straight black brows in a way which expressed
displeasure at his slighting tone.
"You are mistaken," she said briefly. "I must go now. It is time to ring
the bell. The children are running wild."
For the first time the doctor began to take an intelligent interest in his
surroundings, and saw that the tree, the white stoop and the small white
building were situated in a little, quiet oasis separated by a low fence
from the desert of a large yard containing the red pump. On the other
side of the fence was pandemonium!
"Why, it's a school!" he exclaimed.
The school-mistress arose, daintily flicking the crumbs from her white

piqué skirt.
"District No. 15. The largest attendance of any in the county. I really
must ring the bell." She flicked another invisible crumb. "I hope," she
added slowly, "that I haven't discouraged you."
"Oh, no! not at all. Quite the contrary. It seems unfortunate about the
name, but perhaps I can live it down. It isn't as if I were just out of
college, you know.--In fact," as if the thought had just come to him, "do
I not seem to you to be a little old for--to be making a fresh start?"
The girl's eyes looked at him very kindly. It was quite evident that she
thought she understood the situation perfectly. "I shouldn't worry about
that, if I were you," she said. "Young doctors are often no use at all. A
great many people prefer doctors to be older! I know, you see, for my
father was a doctor. He was Dr. Coombe; for many years he was the
only doctor here, the only doctor that counted," with a pretty air of
pride. "The town was named after his father-I am Esther Coombe."
The doctor acknowledged the introduction with a bow and a quick
smile of gratitude.
"You are really very kind, Miss Coombe," he said. "If--if I should take
Dr. Spifkin's practice, I hope I may see you sometimes. It is not far
from here, is it, to the town--pump?"
Esther laughed. "No, but I do not live out here. I only teach here. We
live in town, or almost in. You will pass the house on the way to the
hotel. But before you go--" with a gleeful smile she handed him his lost
pocketbook--"this fell out of your coat when I pull--helped you under
the tree. I should have given it to you before, but I wanted you to
understand just how