'You don't look sick to me, the doctor said. 'Not sick enough to drag me clear out here at night.

'I ain't sick, said Mose.

'Well, then, said the doctor, more grumpily than ever, 'what do you mean by phoning me?

'I got someone who is sick, said Mose. 'I hope you can help him. I would have tried myself, but I don't know how to go about it.

The doctor came inside and Mose shut the door behind him.

'You got something rotten in here? asked the doctor.

'No, it's just the way he smells. It was pretty bad at first, but I'm getting used to it by now.

The doctor saw the thing lying on the bed and went over to it. Old Mose heard him sort of gasp and could see him standing there, very stiff and straight. Then he bent down and had a good look at the critter on the bed.

When he straightened up and turned around to Mose, the only thing that kept him from being downright angry was that he was so flabbergasted.

'Mose, he yelled, 'what _is_ this?

'I don't know, said Mose. 'I found it in the woods and it was hurt and wailing and I couldn't leave it there.

'You think it's sick?

'I know it is, said Mose, 'It needs help awful bad. I'm afraid it's dying.

The doctor turned back to the bed again and pulled the blanket down, then went and got the lamp so that he could see. He looked the critter up and down, and he prodded it with a skittish finger, and he made the kind of mysterious clucking sound that only doctors make.

Then he pulled the blanket back over it again and took the lamp back to the table.

'Mose, he said. 'I can't do a thing for it.

'But you're a doctor!

'A human doctor, Mose. I don't know what this thing is, but it isn't human. I couldn't even guess what is wrong with it, if anything. And I wouldn't know what could be safely done for it even if I could diagnose its illness. I'm not even sure it's an animal. There are a lot of things about it that argue it's a plant.