The Result

It was Farmer Green's new buggy and Farmer Green's bay colt which,
three days later than this, stopped before Dr. Holbrook's office. Not
the square-boxed wagon, with old Sorrel attached; the former was
standing quietly in the chip-yard behind the low red house, while the
latter with his nose over the barnyard fence, neighing occasionally,
as if he missed the little hands which had daily fed him the oatmeal
he liked so much, and which now lay hot and parched and helpless upon
the white counterpane Grandma Markham had spun and woven herself.
Maddy might have been just as sick as she was if the examination had
never occurred, but it was natural for those who loved her to impute
it all to the effects of excitement and cruel disappointment, so there
was something like indignation mingling with the sorrow gnawing at the
hearts of the old couple as they watched by their fever-stricken
darling. Farmer Green, too, shared the feeling, and numerous at first
were his mental animadversions against that "prig of a Holbrook." But
when Maddy grew so bad as not to know him or his wife, he laid aside
his prejudices, and suggested to Grandpa Markham that Dr. Holbrook be
sent for.

"He's great on fevers," he said, "and is good on curin' sick folks,"
so, though he would have preferred some one else should have been
called, confidence in the young doctor's skill won the day, and
grandpa consented.