He spent hours in the woodshed with the remainder of Kate's white paint, making a sign to hang in front of the house.
He was so pathetically anxious for a patient, after he had put his table in place, hung up his sign, and paid for an announcement in the county paper and the little Walden sheet, that Kate was sorry for him.
On a hot July morning Mrs.Holt was sweeping the front porch when a forlorn specimen of humanity came shuffling up the front walk and asked to see Dr.Holt.

Mrs.Holt took him into the office and ran to the garden to tell George his first patient had come.

His face had been flushed from pulling weeds, but it paled perceptibly as he started to the back porch to wash his hands.
"Do you know who it is, Mother ?" he asked.
"It's that old Peter Mines," she said, "an' he looks fit to drop." "Peter Mines!" said George.

"He's had about fifty things the matter with him for about fifty years." "Then you're a made man if you can even make him think he feels enough better so's he'll go round talking about it," said Mrs.Holt, shrewdly.
George stood with his hands dripping water an instant, thinking deeply.
"Well said for once, old lady," he agreed.

"You are just exactly right." He hurried to his room, and put on his coat.
"A patient that will be a big boom for me," he boasted to Kate as he went down the hall.
Mrs.Holt stood listening at the hall door.