PART I. FRIENDS OF CHILDHOOD I Dr. Howard Archie had just come up from a game of pool with the Jewish clothier and two traveling men who happened to be staying overnight in Moonstone .
His offices were in the Duke Block , over the drug store .
Larry , the doctor 's man , had lit the overhead light in the waiting-room and the double student 's lamp on the desk in the study .
The isinglass sides of the hard-coal burner were aglow , and the air in the study was so hot that as he came in the doctor opened the door into his little operating-room , where there was no stove .
The waiting room was carpeted and stiffly furnished , something like a country parlor .
The study had worn , unpainted floors , but there was a look of winter comfort about it .
The doctor 's flat-top desk was large and well made ; the papers were in orderly piles , under glass weights .
Behind the stove a wide bookcase , with double glass doors , reached from the floor to the ceiling .
It was filled with medical books of every thickness and color .
On the top shelf stood a long row of thirty or forty volumes , bound all alike in dark mottled board covers , with imitation leather backs .
As the doctor in New England villages is proverbially old , so the doctor in small Colorado towns twenty-five years ago was generally young .
Dr. Archie was barely thirty .
He was tall , with massive shoulders which he held stiffly , and a large , well-shaped head .
He was a distinguished-looking man , for that part of the world , at least .
There was something individual in the way in which his reddish-brown hair , parted cleanly at the side , bushed over his high forehead .
His nose was straight and thick , and his eyes were intelligent .
He wore a curly , reddish mustache and an imperial , cut trimly , which made him look a little like the pictures of Napoleon III .
His hands were large and well kept , but ruggedly formed , and the backs were shaded with crinkly reddish hair .
He wore a blue suit of woolly , wide-waled serge ; the traveling men had known at a glance that it was made by a Denver tailor .
The doctor was always well dressed .
Dr. Archie turned up the student 's lamp and sat down in the swivel chair before his desk .
He sat uneasily , beating a tattoo on his knees with his fingers , and looked about him as if he were bored .
He glanced at his watch , then absently took from his pocket a bunch of small keys , selected one and looked at it .
A contemptuous smile , barely perceptible , played on his lips , but his eyes remained meditative .
Behind the door that led into the hall , under his buffalo-skin driving-coat , was a locked cupboard .
This the doctor opened mechanically , kicking aside a pile of muddy overshoes .
Inside , on the shelves , were whiskey glasses and decanters , lemons , sugar , and bitters .
Hearing a step in the empty , echoing hall without , the doctor closed the cupboard again , snapping the Yale lock .
The door of the waiting-room opened , a man entered and came on into the consulting-room .
“ Good-evening , Mr. Kronborg , ” said the doctor carelessly .
“ Sit down . ”
His visitor was a tall , loosely built man , with a thin brown beard , streaked with gray .
He wore a frock coat , a broad-brimmed black hat , a white lawn necktie , and steel rimmed spectacles .
Altogether there was a pretentious and important air about him , as he lifted the skirts of his coat and sat down .
“ Good-evening , doctor .
Can you step around to the house with me ?
I think Mrs. Kronborg will need you this evening . ”
This was said with profound gravity and , curiously enough , with a slight embarrassment .
“ Any hurry ? ” the doctor asked over his shoulder as he went into his operating-room .
Mr. Kronborg coughed behind his hand , and contracted his brows .
His face threatened at every moment to break into a smile of foolish excitement .
He controlled it only by calling upon his habitual pulpit manner .
“ Well , I think it would be as well to go immediately .
Mrs. Kronborg will be more comfortable if you are there .
She has been suffering for some time . ”
The doctor came back and threw a black bag upon his desk .
He wrote some instructions for his man on a prescription pad and then drew on his overcoat .
“ All ready , ” he announced , putting out his lamp .
Mr. Kronborg rose and they tramped through the empty hall and down the stairway to the street .
The drug store below was dark , and the saloon next door was just closing .
Every other light on Main Street was out .
On either side of the road and at the outer edge of the board sidewalk , the snow had been shoveled into breastworks .
The town looked small and black , flattened down in the snow , muffled and all but extinguished .
Overhead the stars shone gloriously .
It was impossible not to notice them .
The air was so clear that the white sand hills to the east of Moonstone gleamed softly .
Following the Reverend Mr. Kronborg along the narrow walk , past the little dark , sleeping houses , the doctor looked up at the flashing night and whistled softly .
It did seem that people were stupider than they need be ; as if on a night like this there ought to be something better to do than to sleep nine hours , or to assist Mrs. Kronborg in functions which she could have performed so admirably unaided .
He wished he had gone down to Denver to hear Fay Templeton sing “ See-Saw . ”
Then he remembered that he had a personal interest in this family , after all .
They turned into another street and saw before them lighted windows ; a low story-and-a-half house , with a wing built on at the right and a kitchen addition at the back , everything a little on the slant -- roofs , windows , and doors .
As they approached the gate , Peter Kronborg 's pace grew brisker .
His nervous , ministerial cough annoyed the doctor .
“ Exactly as if he were going to give out a text , ” he thought .
He drew off his glove and felt in his vest pocket .
“ Have a troche , Kronborg , ” he said , producing some .
“ Sent me for samples .
Very good for a rough throat . ”
“ Ah , thank you , thank you .
I was in something of a hurry .
I neglected to put on my overshoes .
Here we are , doctor . ”
Kronborg opened his front door -- seemed delighted to be at home again .
The front hall was dark and cold ; the hatrack was hung with an astonishing number of children 's hats and caps and cloaks .
They were even piled on the table beneath the hatrack .
Under the table was a heap of rubbers and overshoes .
While the doctor hung up his coat and hat , Peter Kronborg opened the door into the living-room .
A glare of light greeted them , and a rush of hot , stale air , smelling of warming flannels .
At three o'clock in the morning Dr. Archie was in the parlor putting on his cuffs and coat -- there was no spare bedroom in that house .
Peter Kronborg 's seventh child , a boy , was being soothed and cosseted by his aunt , Mrs. Kronborg was asleep , and the doctor was going home .
But he wanted first to speak to Kronborg , who , coatless and fluttery , was pouring coal into the kitchen stove .
As the doctor crossed the dining-room he paused and listened .
From one of the wing rooms , off to the left , he heard rapid , distressed breathing .
He went to the kitchen door .
“ One of the children sick in there ? ” he asked , nodding toward the partition .
Kronborg hung up the stove-lifter and dusted his fingers .
“ It must be Thea .
I meant to ask you to look at her .
She has a croupy cold .
But in my excitement -- Mrs. Kronborg is doing finely , eh , doctor ?
Not many of your patients with such a constitution , I expect . ”
“ Oh , yes .
She 's a fine mother . ”
The doctor took up the lamp from the kitchen table and unceremoniously went into the wing room .
Two chubby little boys were asleep in a double bed , with the coverlids over their noses and their feet drawn up .
In a single bed , next to theirs , lay a little girl of eleven , wide awake , two yellow braids sticking up on the pillow behind her .
Her face was scarlet and her eyes were blazing .
The doctor shut the door behind him .
“ Feel pretty sick , Thea ? ” he asked as he took out his thermometer .
“ Why did n't you call somebody ? ”
She looked at him with greedy affection .
“ I thought you were here , ” she spoke between quick breaths .
“ There is a new baby , is n't there ?
Which ? ”
“ Which ? ” repeated the doctor .
“ Brother or sister ? ”
He smiled and sat down on the edge of the bed .
“ Brother , ” he said , taking her hand .
“ Open . ”
“ Good .
Brothers are better , ” she murmured as he put the glass tube under her tongue .
“ Now , be still , I want to count . ”
Dr. Archie reached for her hand and took out his watch .
When he put her hand back under the quilt he went over to one of the windows -- they were both tight shut -- and lifted it a little way .
He reached up and ran his hand along the cold , unpapered wall .
“ Keep under the covers ; I 'll come back to you in a moment , ” he said , bending over the glass lamp with his thermometer .
He winked at her from the door before he shut it .
Peter Kronborg was sitting in his wife 's room , holding the bundle which contained his son .
His air of cheerful importance , his beard and glasses , even his shirt-sleeves , annoyed the doctor .
He beckoned Kronborg into the living-room and said sternly : -- “ You 've got a very sick child in there .
Why did n't you call me before ?
It 's pneumonia , and she must have been sick for several days .
Put the baby down somewhere , please , and help me make up the bed-lounge here in the parlor .
She 's got to be in a warm room , and she 's got to be quiet .
You must keep the other children out .
Here , this thing opens up , I see , ” swinging back the top of the carpet lounge .
“ We can lift her mattress and carry her in just as she is .
I do n't want to disturb her more than is necessary . ”