Sheila nodded, but she held Prudence closely. The old woman was
sobbing.
"This won't do, you know," said Cap'n Ira. "I swan! It beats my
time. I expect you've got friends somewhere, young woman, and you
ought to be given into their charge. I'm real sorry for you, but
what you say don't sound sensible. Ain't you made a mistake? I
cal'late you heard about us and Ida May--"
"I tell you," cried the girl, starting to her feet again, the brown
eyes flashing spitefully, "that that thing there is an impostor.
She's got my place. She's took my name. Why, I'll--I'll have her
arrested. Ain't there no police in this awful place?"
"There's a constable all right," said Cap'n Ira calmly. "But I
wouldn't want to call him in. Not just now, anyway. It looks to me
you wanted a doctor more than you wanted a constable."
"You think I'm crazy!" gasped Ida May.
"Well, it looks as though you was a leetle off your course," the old
man told her calmly. "You don't talk with sense, to say the least.
Making the claim you do would make most anybody think you was a
little flighty. Yes, a little flighty, to say the least." And he
wagged his head.
"Look here," he pursued soothingly. "Have you been sick, perhaps?
You ain't quite yourself, be ye? I knowed a feller once that
thought he was the angel Gabriel and went around with a tin fish
horn, tooting it at all hours of the day and night.
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