Читать книгу Barren Ground онлайн

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He interrupted her brusquely. "My father was good in his generation, but he belongs to the old school."

After this he talked on cheerfully, flattering her, chaffing her, while he made fun of her old-fashioned hygiene and asked innumerable questions, in a careless manner, about her diet, her medicine, her diversions, and the deformity of the baby, John Abner, who was born with a clubfoot. Though it seemed a long time to Dorinda, it was in fact not more than a quarter of an hour before he said good-bye and nodded to the girl to follow him out on the porch.

"I'll show you the very place to hang that hammock," he remarked as he led the way out of doors.

Rose Emily stretched out her thin arm to detain him. "Don't you think I'm getting better every day, Doctor?"

"Better? Of course you're better." He looked down at her with a smile. "We'll have you up and out before summer."

Then he opened the door, and Dorinda obediently followed him outside.

"How on earth does she breathe in that oven?" he demanded moodily, while he walked to the far end of the porch. "She'll be dead in three months, if she doesn't get some fresh air into her lungs. And the children. It's as bad as murder to keep them in that room."