"Where is he? Where have you got him?" the doctor demanded of Savor.

"At my house."

The doctor ran out of the house, and she heard his buggy whirl away,
followed by the fainter sound of Savor's feet as he followed running, after
he had stopped to repeat his story to the Boltons. Annie turned to the
farmer. "Mr. Bolton, get the carry-all. I must go."

"And me too," said his wife.

"Why, no, Pauliny; I guess you better stay. I guess it'll come out all
right in the end," Bolton began. "_I_ guess William has exaggerated
some may be. Anyrate, who's goin' to look after the little girl if you
come?"

"_I_ am," Mrs. Bolton snapped back. "She's goin' with me."

"Of course she is. Be quick, Mr. Bolton!" Annie called from the stairs,
which she had already mounted half-way.

She caught up the child, limp with sleep, from its crib, and began to dress
it. Idella cried, and fought away the hands that tormented her, and made
herself now very stiff and now very lax; but Annie and Mrs. Bolton together
prevailed against her, and she was dressed, and had fallen asleep again
in her clothes while the women were putting on their hats and sacks, and
Bolton was driving up to the door with the carry-all.

"Why, I can see," he said, when he got out to help them in, "just how
William's got his idee about it. His wife's an excitable kind of a woman,
and she's sent him off lickety-split after the doctor without looking to
see what the matter was. There hain't never been anybody hurt at our depot,
and it don't stand to reason--"