"Whew!" "Doc" Murray ejaculated, as Kent rushed forward in surprise and drew him into the room. "I don't believe I ever see sech a 'tarnation ol' rouser ez this un is. I like t' got drifted under," he said breathlessly, as he unwound his yarn muffler from around his neck and shoulders and shook the snow out of it in a spray that filled the small entry hall.
"Sure you're not in the wrong house?" Kent asked. "Nobody sick here."
"I 'low I can make a call where they be nobody ailin' can't I?" "Doc" responded, seemingly aggrieved.
"Well, I should say you can," the parson replied, heartily. "Take off your duds and come in where it's warm. Who ever heard of 'Doc' Murray making a sociable call—and such a night? Here," he said, as they went into his study, "Doc" rubbing his hands together delightedly and Kent awakened to the full pleasure of hospitality; "here, take my chair and pull up to the logs. What a night it is! Looks like winter meant business, doesn't it?" Then, stirring the burning sticks into a ruddy bed of coals, he tossed a few chips onto the fire, where they burst into a cheerful blaze.
In the interim he had continued, various rounds of approving exclamation, his guest looking on in a delicious sense of warming comfort, making no effort to respond other than with an increasing smile. Kent laid a log across the andirons and then resumed the one-sided conversation. "I suppose that I am to ask no questions, but I am glad—mightily glad that you have come, even if I do not know to what I am indebted for the call. I was more than lonesome before you came—lonesome is no name for it. I felt like a station agent up somewhere in a little Dakota two-store town once said he felt. It was just this kind of a night, snowing in chunks, and Boreas seeming to have nine heads blowing from all directions at once. No. 38 had gone by two hours or more, and there was nothing due for another two hours, and that only a freight that would probably be late. He said that he wished something would happen."
"And did it?" "Doc" asked, expecting a story.
"Yes. He heard his instrument tick. Rushing to the table he responded eagerly. 'No. 39 lost—in—the—storm,' came the message. 'If she—reaches you—report here.' That was all that happened."
"But didn't No. 39 reach him?" asked "Doc."
"No; and he sat all night listening to the storm," Kent laughed.
"What kind o' story do you call that?" "Doc" said, disappointedly. But, with renewed animation, he continued: "They've been some good stories come from up in that country. I wuz up there in my young days fer a right long spell, but I couldn't stay. It wan't my kind o' country. Th' on'y trees I ever see all th' time I wuz there wuz the double-trees on 'prairie schooners.' That's right!" he chuckled, as Kent laughed. "They've not enough trees in th' whole country to cover a small-sized Fourth of July pic-nic. Speakin' o' pic-nics, did I ever tell y' o' th' Centre Pole pic-nic we had about five year ago?"
"I don't believe you ever did. This is good pic-nic weather, though," Kent laughed. "Have a cigar and tell me about it?"
"Well, Centre Pole, you know," "Doc" began, but paused to puff up his freshly-lighted weed, as he rolled it in his mouth like a sweet morsel that it was; "Centre Pole is about thirty mile due east from here. Called Centre Pole 'cause it wuz the middle o' th' population o' th' United States then, though I think the stake's gone further west now. 'Milt' Craig wuz down t' read the 'Declaration,' an', as everybody hereabouts had heerd him, nobody'd go, so I felt 'at I had to. We driv' over on th' third an' come back on th' fifth, an' set me ef I ever want a-nother sech trip!"
"What happened?" Royal asked, deeply interested.
"It wan't what happened; it wuz what didn't happen. Didn't you ever hear about it?" he asked, seeming reluctant to believe his auditor entirely ignorant.
"I assure you I have not," Kent responded quickly, eagerly.
"Well, they wan't no pic-nic 't tall; but 'Milt' done th' oration fer my benefit alone, an' when we got back I thought I never would hear th' last o' it."
"Then you—" Kent began, but broke into a laugh that was greatly aggravated by "Doc's" woeful look.
"Yes, I driv' thirty mile t' hear 'Milt' Craig. That's one time I wished 'at somethin' had happened," "Doc" said, joining his host with a thunderous "Ha, ha!" that shook his mighty frame.