“Barbara’s case is different.  She had a congenital dislocation of the femur.”

Miss Mattie’s jaw dropped, but she quickly recovered herself.  “And what have I got?”

“Lumbago.”

“My disease is shorter,” she commented, after a moment of reflection, “but I’ll bet it feels worse.”

“I’ll ask your son to come in if I see him,” said Doctor Conrad, reaching for his hat, “and if you don’t get well immediately, let me know.  Good-bye.”

Roger was nowhere in sight, but he was watching the two houses, and as soon as he saw Doctor Conrad go into North’s, he went back to his mother.

[Sidenote:  Miss Mattie’s “Disease”]

“Barbara’s disease has three words in it, Roger,” she explained, “and mine has only one, but it’s more painful.  You’re to go immediately with this piece of paper and get it full of the medicine he’s written on it.  I’ve been lookin’ at it, but I don’t get no sense out of it.  He said to take two every four hours—­two what?”

“Pills, probably, or capsules.”

“Pills?  Now, Roger, you know that no pill small enough to swallow could cure a big pain like this in my back.  The postmaster’s wife had the rheumatiz last Winter, and she took over five quarts of Old Doctor Jameson’s Pain Killer, and it never did her a mite of good.  What do you think a paper that size, full of pills, can do for a person that ain’t able to stand up without screechin’?”

“Well, we’ll try it anyway, Mother.  Just sit still until I come back with the medicine.”

He went out and returned, presently, with a red box containing forty or fifty capsules.  Miss Mattie took it from him and studied it carefully.  “This box ain’t more’n a tenth as big as the pain,” she observed critically.

Roger brought a glass of water and took out two of the capsules.  “Take these,” he said, “and at half past two, take two more.  Let’s give Doctor Conrad a fair trial.  It’s probably a more powerful medicine than it seems to be.”

[Sidenote:  A Difficulty]

Miss Mattie had some difficulty at first, as she insisted on taking both capsules at once, but when she was persuaded to swallow one after the other, all went well.  “I suppose,” she remarked, “that these long narrow pills have to be took endways.  If a person went to swallow ’em crossways, they’d choke to death.  I was careful how I took ’em, but other people might not be, and I think, myself, that round pills are safer.”

“I went to the office,” said Roger, “and told the Judge I wouldn’t be down to-day.  I have some work I can do at home, and I’d rather not leave you.”