"THE SONG OF THE LARK" - читать интересную книгу автора (Cather Willa Sibert)

"Good-evening, Mr. Kronborg," said the doctor care-
lessly. "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, curi-
ously 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 pre-
scription 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 breast-
works. 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