They want to see you succeed, and
if you want any help at it I am sure you can get it; but don't kill the
goose that lays the golden egg. Don't break yourself up, or there
won't be anybody to help. Don't you see?"
The shoemaker looked up at the good-natured doctor with a quick
expression, and said,--
"Doctor, I'm not doin' any more than I have to, to keep soul and body
together in the family. If I stop any of it, I've got to stop carryin'
things home."
"Oh well," said the doctor, "that may be, that may be. But I'm simply
warning you, as a fellow-man, that you must look out for yourself. It's
all right to trust the Lord, but the Lord isn't going to give any one
man strength enough to do two men's work. I have been in medical
practice forty years, and I have never seen a case of that kind yet.
That's all. I'm in a hurry,--got half a dozen people to see. Don't feel
offended at anything I've said to you. It's all for your good, you
know. Good day."
The doctor departed as rapidly as he had entered, and the cobbler stole
a moment or two from his work to think. How his thoughts ran he could
scarcely have told afterwards, for again the door opened, and the room
darkened slightly, for the person who was entering was Father Black,
the Catholic priest, a man whose frame was as big as his heart, he
being reputed to be one of the largest-hearted men in all Bruceton.
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