THE COUNTRY DOCTORS 



Out at all hours of day and night, pelted by storms 

 of rain and storms of snow, chilled by bitter cold 

 of winter and scorched by downright beams of the 

 summer sun, our country doctor leads a hard and 

 wearing life. He rides over roads now heavy with 

 mire, now blocked with snow, now choking with 

 dust. With body so overworked and mind per- 

 plexed by difficult cases and the worry of un- 

 reasoning and exacting patients, it is a wonder how 

 he preserves health and strength without his own 

 physic, or maintains a cheerful spirit, yet he does 

 both. 



In an obscure corner of his office you may dis- 

 cover a gun, a rod and a box of fishing tackle, 

 none too carefully kept, yet all serviceable and 

 ready for use in their season; and these constitute 

 his private medicine chest, with judicious draughts 

 wherefrom he preserves the health and vigor of 

 body and mind. 



Sometimes when you meet him on his way to 

 visit a distant patient of the continually ailing sort, 

 the gun shares with him the narrow seat of the 

 sulky, unskillfully masked under a blanket, or the 

 red case rests between his knees, and you guess his 

 * Dr. Willard of Vergennes. 



