"She can't hear of a complaint anywheres
about but she thinks she's got the mate to it."
"I don't seem to have anything fevery about me," said Mrs. Jake, with
an air of patient self-denial; and though both her companions were
most compassionate at the thought of her real sufferings, they could
not resist the least bit of a smile. "I declare you've done one
first-rate thing, if you're never going to do any more," said Mrs.
Jake, presently. "'Liza here's been talking for some time past, about
your straightening up the little boy's back,--the one that lives down
where Mis' Meeker used to live you know,--but I didn't seem to take it
in till he come over here yisterday forenoon. Looks as likely as any
child, except it may be he's a little stunted. When I think how he
used to creep about there, side of the road, like a hopper-toad, it
does seem amazin'!"
Nan's eyes brightened. "I have been delighted about that. I saw him
running with the other children as I came down the road. It was a long
bit of work, though. The doctor did most of it; I didn't see the child
for months, you know. But he needs care yet; I'm going to stop and
have another talk with his mother as I go home."
"She's a pore shiftless creature," Mrs. Martin hastened to say.
"There, I thought o' the doctor, how he'd laugh, the last time I was
in to see her; her baby was sick, and she sent up to know if I'd lend
her a variety of herbs, and I didn't know but she might p'isen it, so
I stepped down with something myself.
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