Sissy was down with it!
Poor George, his brown, weather-beaten face seamed with misery, met us
at the garden gate.
"She's awful bad," he muttered, "an' the doc. says she'll be worse
afore she's better."
Next door a man was digging two graves in his garden.
Meantime, Pap Spooner had disappeared. We heard that he had gone to a
mountain ranch of his about fifteen miles away. Nobody missed him;
nobody cared whether he went or stayed. In the village store it was
conceded that Pap's room, rain or shine, was better than his company.
His name was never mentioned till it began to fall from Sissy
Leadham's delirious lips.
The schoolmarm first told me that the child was asking for Andrew
Spooner, moaning, wailing, shrieking for "pore old Pap." George
Leadham was distracted.
"What in thunder she wants that ole cuss fer I can't find out. She's
drivin' me plum crazy." I explained.
"That's it," said George. "It's bin Pap an' her money night an' day
fer forty-eight hours. She wanted ter give him--him, by Jing!--her
money."
The doctor heard the story half an hour later. He had not the honour
of Andrew Spooner's acquaintance, and he had reason to believe that
all men in the foothills were devoid of fear.
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