Adventure Magazine Cover, June 18, 1921 — page 174: what you’re looking at

Machine-transcribed from the original scan — historical spelling and the odd misread are preserved.

164 my tired horses; for the matter interested me littl enough. ‘And Black Valley’ll stagger along somehow, even if he never comes back.” At the house I clambered. stiffly out of my buggy, Jeaving Jack Mack:to take care of the horses. Mary Belle Hume tripped along the walk toward me, a little basket on her arm. ‘“‘Where going, Mary Belle?”’ She dropped me a demure curtsey. “ ‘I’m going a-Maying, sir, she said!’ Want to come along, Monty?” I straightened a cramped leg tentatively. “I’m too old and fat, child. I’m just one jump ahead of rheumatism now, with- out dabbling my feet in any brooklets.”’ She made a little face, offering me her shoulder. “Lean on me, grandpa!” The child had no respect for my age and wisdom. “Trot along in then, and toast your aged toes. I'll bring you a nosegay; Watson’s sugar-bush is just full of arbutus and Spring beauties.” She danced away, and I went into the house, recalling with a sigh the days when Molly and I had gone a-Maying together. But I found my wife in no sentimental mood. Her black eyes snapped. “Kirke Montgomery,” she began, ‘“I’d just like to know how much longer you’re going to doctor folks for nothing. That man Tulliver owes you a hundred dollars now, if it’s a cent; and everybody in the three valleys sick, and these awful roads, and you coming in all tired out, and every- thing—so there!”’ I put an arm over her slender shoulders; I know my wife tolerably well. “‘Who’s sick over there, Molly?” “Tt’s Grace-Alice-May.” All the Tulli- ver children dragged after them names Jong as a kite’s tail. “‘John-Albert-Morris was just here, and he said, ‘Dad says f’r the doc t’ drap ever’thin’, an’ come a-runnin’! Now, Kirke, if you go!’’ “Oh, well,” said I. my shoes.” Molly hugged me tight, cheek against my shoulder. “I told John- Albert-Morris _ you’d be there in half an hour,” she whispered. ~ And at that I laughed aloud,’ and kissed my wife three times. Mr. Vincent St. John Tulliver, with his faded wife and his numerous and polyphonic progeny, made up Black Valley’s sub- rubbing her “Just let me change Adventure merged tenth. He never paid money to anybody—least of alla doctor. Wherefore, as every physician will understand, he sum- moned me often and peremptorily, as by royal right. And I went meekly, and dis- pensed his family drugs for which I must pay higher every year. And in return, Vincent St. John disparaged my poor at- tainments to all who would listen, advising in place of my services certain patent medicines by which he set great store—for the diseases of others. That sort of thing goes with a country doctor’s job; and Molly knew it as well.as I. But her it irri- tated, while it only amused me. The Tullivers resided in Crab Hollow, a little cleft in the shoulder of West Hill. It was no more than a quarter of a mile from my door, by way of the meadows and Wat- son’s sugar-bush; so I elected to walk cross-lots and stretch my cramped legs. I put on boots, discarded my overcoat and set forth, black bag in hand. As I ‘expected, the ailment of Grace- Alice-May was scarcely mortal; but George- Horace-Petronius had a cold, and Sarah- Vere-de-Vere a cough, and the woman seemed kinda pindlin’-like. So I must spend an hour prodding them over and dealing out expensive pills before I could go. AT LAST I was out, and scrambling up the steep hillside into the maple @3 srove.. Mary Belle had had time to fill her basket twice over; if she were still in the sugar-bush, I would walk home with her. I walked slowly, looking here and there, until, in the very center of the little wood, I caught a flash a pink gingham and turned that way. © Then I heard a scream; the sort of scream that sets one’s heart to pounding—for' a doctor soon becomes a connoisseur of out- cries. I raced toward it, stumbling over an empty bottle, and then another, and into the open space beneath a huge old tree. Here was Mary Belle, struggling in a man’s arms; and, though the fellow’s back was toward me, I knew him by gray-green khaki and boots and gloves for Lily-White Hand. : “Be good, now!” hé panted. “Yelling won’t get you anything—there’s nobody to hear.” I caught a glimpse of a sharp profile; of thin, avid lips; and I was upon them. “Oh, Monty!” sobbed Mary Belle. COmicloo oN ) (©