Song of the Lark | Page 4

will be more comfortable if you are there. She has been
suffering for some time."
The doctor came back and threw a black bag upon his desk. He wrote
some instructions for his man on a pre- scription pad and then drew on

his overcoat. "All ready," he announced, putting out his lamp. Mr.
Kronborg rose and they tramped through the empty hall and down the
stairway to the street. The drug store below was dark, and the saloon
next door was just closing. Every other light on Main Street was out.
On either side of the road and at the outer edge of the board sidewalk,
the snow had been shoveled into breast- works. The town looked small
and black, flattened down in the snow, muffled and all but extinguished.
Overhead the stars shone gloriously. It was impossible not to notice
them. The air was so clear that the white sand hills to the east of
Moonstone gleamed softly. Following the Reverend Mr. Kronborg
along the narrow walk, past the little dark, sleeping houses, the doctor
looked up at the flashing night and whistled softly. It did seem that
people were stupider than they need be; as if on a night like this there
ought to be something better to do than to sleep nine hours, or to assist
Mrs. Kronborg in functions which she could have performed so
admirably unaided. He wished he had gone down to Denver to hear Fay
Templeton sing "See-Saw." Then he remembered that he had a personal
interest in this

family, after all. They turned into another street and saw before them
lighted windows; a low story-and-a-half house, with a wing built on at
the right and a kitchen addition at the back, everything a little on the
slant--roofs, windows, and doors. As they approached the gate, Peter
Kron- borg's pace grew brisker. His nervous, ministerial cough
annoyed the doctor. "Exactly as if he were going to give out a text," he
thought. He drew off his glove and felt in his vest pocket. "Have a
troche, Kronborg," he said, producing some. "Sent me for samples.
Very good for a rough throat."
"Ah, thank you, thank you. I was in something of a hurry. I neglected to
put on my overshoes. Here we are, doctor." Kronborg opened his front
door--seemed de- lighted to be at home again.
The front hall was dark and cold; the hatrack was hung with an
astonishing number of children's hats and caps and cloaks. They were

even piled on the table beneath the hatrack. Under the table was a heap
of rubbers and over- shoes. While the doctor hung up his coat and hat,
Peter Kronborg opened the door into the living-room. A glare of light
greeted them, and a rush of hot, stale air, smelling of warming flannels.
At three o'clock in the morning Dr. Archie was in the parlor putting on
his cuffs and coat--there was no spare bedroom in that house. Peter
Kronborg's seventh child, a boy, was being soothed and cosseted by his
aunt, Mrs. Kronborg was asleep, and the doctor was going home. But
he wanted first to speak to Kronborg, who, coatless and fluttery, was
pouring coal into the kitchen stove. As the doctor crossed the
dining-room he paused and listened. From one of the wing rooms, off
to the left, he heard rapid, distressed breathing. He went to the kitchen
door.
"One of the children sick in there?" he asked, nodding toward the
partition.

Kronborg hung up the stove-lifter and dusted his fingers. "It must be
Thea. I meant to ask you to look at her. She has a croupy cold. But in
my excitement--Mrs. Kronborg is doing finely, eh, doctor? Not many
of your patients with such a constitution, I expect."
"Oh, yes. She's a fine mother." The doctor took up the lamp from the
kitchen table and unceremoniously went into the wing room. Two
chubby little boys were asleep in a double bed, with the coverlids over
their noses and their feet drawn up. In a single bed, next to theirs, lay a
little girl of eleven, wide awake, two yellow braids sticking up on the
pillow behind her. Her face was scarlet and her eyes were blazing.
The doctor shut the door behind him. "Feel pretty sick, Thea?" he asked
as he took out his thermometer. "Why didn't you call somebody?"
She looked at him with greedy affection. "I thought you were here," she
spoke between quick breaths. "There is a new baby, isn't there?
Which?"

"Which?" repeated the doctor.
"Brother or sister?"
He smiled and sat down on the edge of the bed. "Bro- ther," he said,
taking her hand. "Open."
"Good. Brothers are better," she murmured as he put the glass tube
under her tongue.