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 Optimal Gossiping in Directed Geometric Radio
Networks in Presence of Dynamical Faults
(Extended Abstract)

Andrea E.F. Clementi1 , Angelo Monti2 , Francesco Pasquale1, ,

and Riccardo Silvestri2
1
Dipartimento di Matematica, Università di Roma “Tor Vergata”
{clementi,pasquale}@mat.uniroma2.it
2
Dipartimento di Informatica, Università di Roma “La Sapienza”
{monti,silvestri}@di.uniroma1.it

Abstract. We study deterministic fault-tolerant gossiping protocols in directed

Geometric Radio Networks (in short, directed GRN). Unpredictable node and link
faults may happen during every time slot of the protocol’s execution.
We first consider the single-message model where every node can send at most
one message per time slot. We provide a protocol that, in any directed GRN G of n
nodes, completes gossiping in O(nΔ) time (where Δ is the maximal in-degree of
G) and has message complexity O(n2 ). Both bounds are then shown to be optimal.
As for the combined-message model, we give a protocol working in optimal
completion time O(DΔ) (where D is the maximal source eccentricity) and mes-
sage complexity O(Dn). Finally, our protocol performs the (single) broadcast
operation within the same optimal time and optimal message complexity O(n).

1 Introduction
In a radio network, every node (station) can directly transmit to some subset of the
nodes depending on the power of its transmitter and on the topological characteristics
of the surrounding region. When a node u can directly transmit to a node v, we say
that there is a (wireless) directed link (u, v). The set of nodes together with the set
of these links form a directed communication graph that represents the radio network.
In the radio network model [BGI92, CGR02, CGGPR00, CR06], the communication
is assumed to be synchronous: this allows to focus on the impact of the interference
phenomenon on the network performance. When a node sends a message, the latter is
sent in parallel on all outgoing links. However, since a single radio frequence is used
(see [ABLP89, BGI92, CGGPR00]), when two or more neighbors of a node transmit
at the same time slot, a collision occurs (due to interference) and the message is lost.
So, a node can recover a message from one of its incoming links if and only if this link
is the only one bringing in a message. The broadcast task consists of sending a source
message from a given source node to all nodes of the network. The completion time of
a broadcast protocol is the number of time slots required by the protocol to inform all
(reachable) nodes. A node is informed if it has received the source message.

Research partially supported by the EU under the EU/IST Project 15964 AEOLUS.

Corresponding author.

L. Kučera and A. Kučera (Eds.): MFCS 2007, LNCS 4708, pp. 430–441, 2007.

c Springer-Verlag Berlin Heidelberg 2007
 Optimal Gossiping in Directed GRN in Presence of Dynamical Faults 431

Another important task in radio networks is gossiping, i.e., n simultaneous and inde-
pendent broadcast operations, each one from a different node [CGR02, CMS03, GPX05].
The completion time of a gossiping protocol is the number of time slots the proto-
col requires so that every source message m is received by all nodes reachable from
the source of m. We will consider two transmission models: the single-message model
[BII93] and the combined-message one [CGR02]: in the former every node can transmit
and receive at most one source message per time-slot while, in the latter, source mes-
sages can be arbitrarily combined and sent/received in one time slot [CGR02, GPX05].
Broadcasting and gossiping are fundamental communication tasks in radio networks
and they are the subject of several research works in both algorithmic and networking
areas [BGI92, CGR02, CGGPR00, PR97, R96]. It is reasonable to claim that almost
all major theoretical questions related to such tasks can be considered closed as far as
static networks are considered: the network never changes during the entire protocol’s
execution (see Subsection 1.1).
However, radio networks are typically adopted in scenarios where unpredictable
node and link faults happen very frequently. Node failures happen when some hard-
ware or software component of a station does not work, while link failures are due to
the presence of a new (artificial or natural) hurdle that does not allow the communica-
tion along that link. In ad-hoc networking, while it is sometimes reasonable to assume
that nodes (thus the protocol) know the initial topology, nothing is known about the
duration and the location of faults. Such faults may clearly happen even during the ex-
ecution of a protocol. In the sequel, such kind of faults will be called dynamical faults
or, simply, faults.
Theoretical results on broadcast and gossiping protocols in any scenario where the
network topology may change during the protocol’s execution are very few (see Sub-
section 1.1).

The Model of Faulty Networks. We follow a high-level approach by considering ad-

versarial networks [AS98, ABBS01, CMS04, P02, S01]. Arbitrary dynamical faults are
decided by a deterministic adaptive adversary. We analyze the completion time and the
message complexity (i.e. maximum number of transmitted messages) of broadcast and
gossiping protocols with respect to worst-case adversary’s strategies.
The (worst-case) completion time of a Fault-tolerant Broadcast (in short, FB) pro-
tocol on a network G is defined as the maximal number (with respect to any possi-
ble adversarial strategy) of time slots required to inform all nodes reachable from the
source in the unpredictable fault-free part of the network. More precisely, according
to the fault-tolerance model adopted in [KKP98, P02, CMS04], a fault pattern F is a
function (managed by the adaptive adversary) that maps every time-slot t to the subset
F (t) of nodes and links that are faulty during time slot t. The residual subgraph GF is
the graph obtained from G by removing all those nodes and links that belong to F (t),
for some time-slot t during the protocol’s execution. Then, a FB protocol for a graph G
is a broadcast protocol that, for any source s, and for any fault pattern F , guarantees
that every node, which is reachable from s in the residual subgraph GF , will receive the
source message. The residual eccentricity of a node v is its eccentricity in the residual
graph. The eccentricity of v is the maximal oriented distance (i.e. number of hops) from
v to a reachable node.
432 A.E.F. Clementi et al.

The above definitions can be easily extended to Fault-tolerant Gossiping (in short
FG) protocols: For any source s, message ms must be received by every node reachable
from s in GF , for any choice of fault pattern F .
It is important to remark that if a node v is not reachable from a source in the residual
subgraph, then the arrival of ms to v is not considered in the analysis of the completion
time. This assumption might be considered too strong but it is necessary. Indeed, it is
easy to see that any attempt to consider larger residual subgraphs makes the worst-case
completion time of any deterministic FG protocol infinite. This is well-explained by the
following simple game. Consider k informed nodes that are in the in-neighborhood of a
non informed node w. It is easy to see that any deterministic protocol, trying to inform
w, fails forever against the following simple adversary’s strategy: if at least two of the
k in-neighbors transmit then the adversary leaves all edges on, while if there is exactly
one of them transmitting, then the adversary makes only this link faulty. Observe that
w is always connected to the informed part of the network but it will never receive the
message (w is indeed not in the residual graph).
On the other hand, broadcasting and gossiping (and their analysis) in the residual
graph is much harder than the same operation in fault-free radio networks. This is
mainly due to the presence of unknown collisions that the adversary can produce at any
time-slot on the residual graph too. As a matter of fact, while the completion time of
broadcast on general fault-free radio networks of source eccentricity D is O(D+log3 n)
[GPX05], it turns out that there is a class of radio networks of constant√source eccen-
tricity where the same operation, in the above fault model, requires Θ(n n) time slots
[CMS04]. So, in general graphs of “small” source√ eccentricity, the completion time gap
may be exponential. The lower bound Ω(n n) in [CMS04] provides also a strong ev-
idence of the significant difference between dynamical faults (on the residual graph)
and permanent faults: in the latter network scenario, worst-case broadcasting time is
O(n log2 n) [CGR02].

Our Results. We investigate directed Geometric Radio Networks, in short directed

GRN [ENW00, KKKP00, CKOZ03, CCPRV01, DP07]. A directed GRN G(V, E) is
constructed by arbitrarily placing n nodes on the Euclidean plane; then, to each node v
a transmission range rv ≥ 0 is assigned. These transmission ranges uniquely determine
the set E of directed links: (u, v) ∈ E iff d(u, v) ≤ ru , where d(u, v) denotes the
Euclidean distance between u and v. When all nodes have the same transmission range,
the resulting graph is symmetric: this restriction is denoted as symmetric GRN.
We provide the first optimal bounds on the completion time and message complexity
of FG protocols (and FB ones) in directed GRN for both single-message and combined-
message models. More precisely, for the first model, given any directed GRN G of n
nodes and maximal in-degree Δ, our FG protocol works in O(nΔ) time-slots and it has
message complexity O(n2 ). Such bounds are then shown to be optimal.
Then, we consider the combined-message model and provide an FG protocol that
works in optimal O(DΔ) time-slots (D denotes the maximal residual source eccentric-
ity) and it has message complexity O(n2 ). We emphasize that this is the first FG proto-
col whose completion-time does not (explicitly) depend on n. Furthermore, the protocol
can be easily analyzed for the (single) broadcast task: in this case, the completion time
is still O(DΔ) while the message complexity reduces to O(n). Both upper bounds are
 Optimal Gossiping in Directed GRN in Presence of Dynamical Faults 433

again optimal and, as for time complexity, it improves over the best (polynomial-time
constructible) FB upper bound for general graphs by an O(log3 n) factor ([CMS04] -
see Subsection 1.1).
Adopted Techniques. Since the fault pattern is unpredictable, an FG protocol must
have the following “connectivity” property: it must consider all possible paths from a
source to any node reachable from that source. To this aim, our protocols make an itera-
tive use of collision-free families. A collision-free family is a set family (defined on the
out-neighborhoods of the input graph - see Definition 2.1) that induces a transmission
scheduling that somewhat guarantees the above connectivity property and yields no col-
lision. So, when a node is scheduled as transmitter, its message is safely received by all
its out-neighbors in the residual graph. This important fact is one of the key ingredients
to get optimal message complexity (and thus energy efficiency) of our protocols. On
the other hand, the size of the collision-free family is a linear factor in the completion
time of our FG protocols. A crucial step in our protocol design is thus the efficient con-
struction of a collision-free family for the input graphs. We indeed provide an algorithm
that constructs an optimal-size collision-free family for any directed GRN working in
time O(n2 ).
We observe that, given access to a collision-free family for the input graph, our pro-
tocols run in a fully-distributed fashion. However, in order to construct such optimal
collision-free family it is necessary to know the initial graph topology. In Section 3,
we also provide an efficient distributed construction of collision-free families under a
much weaker knowledge condition: each node construct its own scheduling (so, “its”
component of the collision-free family) by assuming that it only knows its position and
a good approximation of the minimal distance among nodes. We then prove that if the
(unknown) initial topology is well spread [CPS04], the returned collision-free family
has optimal size, thus yielding the same protocol’s performance given by the central-
ized construction. Well spread instances (see Definition 3.8) are a natural and broad
generalization of grid networks. Due to lack of space, some proofs are omitted and they
are available in the full version [CMPS07].

1.1 Related Works

Permanent Faults. In [KKP98], the authors consider the broadcast operation in pres-
ence of permanent unknown node faults for two restricted classes of networks. They
derive a Θ(D +log min{Δ, t}) bound where D is the source eccentricity in the residual
graph and t is the number of faults. More recently, the issue of permanent-fault-tolerant
broadcasting in general networks has been studied in [CGGPR00, CGR02, CMS03]. In
these papers, several lower and upper bounds on the completion time of broadcasting are
obtained in the unknown fault-free network model. We observe that the results obtained
in unknown networks apply to general networks with permanent faults. In particular, in
[CMS03], an Ω(n log D) lower bound for the broadcast completion time is proved. The
best general upper bound is O(n log2 n) [CGR02]. In [CMS03], the authors provide a
protocol having O(DΔ log2 n) completion time.
In [GL02], a gossiping protocol for unknown networks is given that works in
O(n1.5 log2 n) time. [CMS03] provides a permanent-fault tolerant gossiping protocol
434 A.E.F. Clementi et al.

having O(DΔ2 log2 n) completion time. The above results work for the combined-
message model. As for the single-message model, in [CMS03], a deterministic gossip-
ing protocol is given that has O(nΔ2 log3 n) completion time. We also mention the pro-
tocol for unknown directed GRN working in O(n) time given in [DP07], even though
it does not work for faulty networks.
Dynamical Faults. We emphasize that all the above protocols do not work in presence
of dynamical faults. As mentioned before, this is mainly due to the collisions yielded
by any unpredictable wake-up of a faulty node/link during the protocol execution. Our
dynamical fault model has been studied in [CMS04] where the round robin strategy is
proved to be optimal for general graphs. Then, they show the existence of a determinis-
tic FG protocol having O(DΔ log n) completion time. The protocol is based on a prob-
abilistic construction of ad-hoc strongly-selective families [CMS03, I02] for general
graphs. Such families have a weaker property than collision-free ones: this weakness
yields a not efficient message complexity. By adopting the efficient construction of such
families in [I97], they can efficiently construct a FG protocol having O(DΔ log3 n)
completion time. These protocols only hold for the combined-message model. In [PP05]
an initial graph is given and, at each time slot, every node is faulty with probability p,
where p is a fixed positive constant such that 0 < p < 1. They prove an O(opt log n)
bound for the broadcast completion time where opt is the optimal completion time in
the fault-free case. They also prove that it is impossible to achieve O(opt + log n) com-
pletion time.
It is not hard to see that, when the graph is symmetric, any distance-2 coloring
[C06] of size k yields a collision-free family of size k and viceversa. For some classes
of undirected graphs, there are efficient constant-factor approximation algorithms that
find a distance-2 coloring. In particular, for unit disk graphs [C06, CCJ90, SM97] a 7-
approximation algorithm is presented in [SM97]. Since symmetric GRN in the plane are
equivalent to unit disk graphs, the latter algorithm can be used to construct a collision-
free family for this class of symmetric radio networks. However, this coloring algorithm
does not work for directed GRN.

2 Collision-Free Families and Fault-Tolerant Gossiping

In this section we introduce collision-free families and we show how to exploit them to
design fault-tolerant gossiping protocols.

Definition 2.1 (Collision-free families). Let G(V, E) be a directed graph and let V 
be the set of nodes that have at least one out-neighbor. A collision-free family S for G
is a partition S = {S1 , . . . , Sk } of V  , such that, for each S ∈ S and for each x, y ∈ S
with x = y, N out (x) ∩ N out (y) = ∅.

In the sequel, we assume that, given any directed graph G(V, E), we have at hand a
collision-free family S = {S1 , S2 , . . . , Sk } for G. In Section 3 we will then show how
to construct collision-free families of small size.
Single-Message Model. In this model every transmission can contain only one of the
source messages. We assume that each message contains the unique ID number of its
 Optimal Gossiping in Directed GRN in Presence of Dynamical Faults 435

source so that different messages have different ID’s. The following FG protocol makes
use of message IDs to define a priority queue in every node.
Protocol PRIO - SELECT(S) consists of a sequence of consecutive phases. Each phase
consists of k = |S| time-slots. At the very beginning, the priority queue of every node
u contains only mu . At the beginning of every phase, every node v extracts (if any) the
message m̂ of highest priority (i.e. the maximal ID number) from its priority queue.
Then, at time-slot j of a phase, node v acts according to the following rules
- If v ∈ Sj and m̂ exists then v transmits m̂.
- In all other cases, v acts as receiver. If v receives a message m for the first time then
m is enqueued, otherwise it is discarded.
Theorem 2.2. Given a collision-free family S of size k for a directed graph G,
PRIO - SELECT(S) completes fault-tolerant gossiping in G within O(nk) time slots and
message complexity O(n2 ).
Combined-Message Model. In this model, source messages can be arbitrarily com-
bined and sent in one transmission.
Protocol MULTI - SELECT(S). Each node v keeps the set Mold (v) of the messages al-
ready sent by node v and the set Mnew (v) of the messages that node v has to send. At
the beginning of the protocol, Mnew (v) contains only the source message of node v and
the set Mold (v) is empty. The protocol consists of a sequence of consecutive phases.
Each phase consists of k = |S| time-slots. All phases are identical. At time slot j of a
phase, node v acts according to the following rules
- If v ∈ Sj and Mnew (v) is not empty then v transmits all the messages in Mnew (v)
and moves all these messages to the set Mold (v);
- In all other cases, v acts as receiver. When v receives a message m, if it is not in
Mold (v) then it is added to Mnew (v). Otherwise m is discarded.
Theorem 2.3. Given a collision-free family S of size k for a directed graph G,
MULTI - SELECT(S) completes fault-tolerant gossiping in G within O(Dk) time-slots
and message complexity O(Dn), where D is the maximal residual source eccentricity.
Moreover, an easy adaptation of MULTI - SELECT(S) for the broadcast operation works
with the same completion time while the message complexity reduces to O(n).

3 Explicit Constructions of Collision-Free Families

Centralized Construction. Given a set V of points (i.e. nodes) in R2 and a range
assignment r : V → R+ , the directed GRN is uniquely determined and it will be
denoted as Gr (V ). Indeed, for each node v ∈ V , let B(v) be the closed disk of center
v and radius r(v), i.e., B(v) = {x ∈ R2 : d(v, x)  r(v)}. We define the in-
neighborhood of a node v ∈ V as the set N in (v) = {w ∈ V : v ∈ B(w)}. We define
Δ(v) = |N in (v)| and the maximal in-degree of Gr (V ) as Δ = maxv∈V Δ(v).
We will show that, given any directed GRN Gr (V ) as input, the following algorithm
CFF returns a collision-free family S for Gr (V ) of size O(Δ). Since Ω(Δ) is a trivial
lower bound for such families, the one returned by CFF is asymptotically optimal.
436 A.E.F. Clementi et al.

The algorithm constructs every set of S by inserting nodes whose range disks are
pairwise disjoint. Nodes are inserted in a non increasing order w.r.t. their ranges. This
set construction is repeated until no node of V  is left outside S.

Algorithm CFF (a finite set V ⊆ R2 , a function r : V → R+ )

1 Let X := V  = {v ∈ V : N out (v) = ∅}; S := ∅; i := 0;
2 while X = ∅ do
3 i := i + 1; Si := ∅; U := ∅; Y := X;
4 while Y = ∅ do
5 Choose v ∈ Y such that r(v) is maximum;
6 if U ∩ B(v) = ∅ then
7 Si := Si ∪ {v}; U := U ∪ B(v);
8 Y := Y − {v};
9 S := S ∪ {Si }; X := X − Si ;
10 return S.

It is easy to see that, by using standard data structures, the algorithm works in O(n2 )
time. Moreover, family S returned by the algorithm is collision free by construction.
We now provide a preliminary bound on the size of S. For every v ∈ V  , we define the
set I(v) of all nodes of V  that could interfere with v and that have range not smaller
than the range of v, i.e., I(v) = {w ∈ V  : B(v) ∩ B(w) = ∅ and r(w)  r(v)}.

Lemma 3.1. Family S has size at most maxv∈V  |I(v)|.

Proof. At every iteration of the external loop (line 2), a new set of S is constructed.
Consider the i-th iteration and let v ∈ V  be any node not yet inserted in any of sets
S1 , S2 , . . . , Si−1 constructed in the previous iterations. For every j = 1, 2, . . . , i − 1,
Sj must contain at least one node in I(v). Indeed, assume by contradiction that there
exists j  i − 1 such that Sj ∩ I(v) = ∅. Then, for every w ∈ Sj with r(w)  r(v),
it holds that B(w) ∩ B(v) = ∅. When the algorithm selects v in line 5, the condition
at line 6 is true, so v should be inserted in Sj : a contradiction. Since the sets of S
are pairwise disjoints, the number of iterations of the external loop does not exceed
maxv∈V  |I(v)|.

Our next goal is to prove that maxv∈V  |I(v)| ∈ O(Δ). To this aim, we will show that,
for every v ∈ V  , we can partition R2 into a constant number of regions so that each
region contains at most Δ nodes of I(v).

Lemma 3.2. For every v ∈ V  , it holds that |B(v) ∩ I(v)|  Δ.

Proof. Nodes in I(v) have range at least r(v). Hence, all nodes of I(v) in B(v) are
points of N in (v), i.e., I(v) ∩ B(v) ⊆ N in (v).

We now consider the region outside disk B(v) and define the circular crown

Cλ (v) = {y ∈ R2 : r(v) < d(v, y)  λr(v)}, where λ > 1.

k  λ/2.
Lemma 3.3. Let 1 < λ < 2 and let k ∈ N be large enough such that cos 2π
Then, for any v ∈ V  , Cλ (v) contains at most kΔ nodes of I(v).
 Optimal Gossiping in Directed GRN in Presence of Dynamical Faults 437

Proof. Consider a polar coordinate system centered in v and consider the partition
of Cλ (v) defined by the regions ]r(v), λr(v)] × [ϑi , ϑi+1 [ where ϑi = 2πi k for i =
0, 1, . . . , k−1. Then, since cos 2π
k  λ/2, it is easy to see that the square of the maximal
distance between two points in the same region is r(v)2 + λ2 r(v)2 − 2λr(v)2 cos 2π k 
r(v)2 . For any w ∈ I(v), it holds that r(w)  r(v), so w is in the in-neighborhood of
all points in the same region of w. So, in every region there are at most Δ points of I(v)
and, since there are k regions in Cλ (v), the thesis follows.
2
Consider the function g(λ) = λ +2λ−1 2λ2 and observe that 1/2 < g(λ) < 1, for any
k  g(λ), then for any a  b 
λ > 1. It is possible to prove that, if k is such that cos 2π
λ it holds that
2π
a2 + b2 − 2ab cos  (a − 1)2 . (1)
k
We will use this fact in proving next Lemma.

Lemma 3.4. Let λ > 1 and let k ∈ N be large enough such that cos 2π k  g(λ). Then,
for any v ∈ V  , there are at most kΔ nodes of I(v) outside B(v) ∪ Cλ (v).

Proof. Consider a polar coordinate system centered in v, and define a partition of the
space outside B(v) ∪ Cλ (v) in the regions [λr(v), +∞[ × [ϑi , ϑi+1 [ where ϑi = 2πi k
for i = 0, 1, . . . , k − 1. Let x = (x , ϕx ) and y = (y , ϕy ) two nodes of I(v) that lie
in the same region and suppose wlog that x  y . Then, two constants a, b ∈ R exist
with a  b  λ such that x = a · r(v) and y = b · r(v). We thus get
 
2π
d(x, y)2 = 2x + 2y − 2x y cos (ϕx − ϕy )  r(v)2 a2 + b2 − 2ab cos
k

where in the inequality we used the fact that x and y lie in the same region. From (1),
we get d(x, y)2  r(v)2 (a − 1)2 = (a · r(v) − r(v))2 = (x − r(v))2 . Since x ∈ I(v),
it must hold that B(x) ∩ B(v) = ∅, so x − r(v)  r(x), and d(x, y)2  r(x)2 .
Therefore, y lies in B(x) and, thus, x ∈ N in (y). It follows that, for every region T , if
y ∈ T ∩ I(v) is a node with minimum distance from v, i.e, a node with minimum y ,
then T ∩ I(v) ⊆ N in (y). This implies that in every region there are at most Δ points
of I(v): since the regions are k, the thesis follows.
λ 
Lemma 3.5. Let 1 < λ < 2 and let k ∈ N be such that cos 2π k  max 2 , g(λ) .
Then, for any v ∈ V  , it holds that |I(v)|  (1 + 2k)Δ.

Proof. Consider the partition of R2 into the three sets: B(v), Cλ (v), and the com-
plement of B(v) ∪ Cλ (v). By combining Lemmas 3.2, 3.3, and 3.4, we get |I(v)| 
(1 + k + k)Δ.

Theorem 3.6. Algorithm CFF returns a collision-free family S for Gr (V ) of size at

most cΔ, where c  33.

Proof. Family S is collision-free for Gr (V ) by construction. Let λ be such that 1 <

λ < 2. From Lemmas 3.1 and 3.5, we obtain |S|  maxv∈V  |I(v)|  (1 + 2k)Δ,
with k ∈ N such that cos(2π/k)  max{λ/2, g(λ)}. Then, in order to minimize k,
438 A.E.F. Clementi et al.

we choose λ such that λ/2 = (λ2 + 2λ − 1)/(2λ2 ). Consider the function f (λ) =
λ3 − λ2 − 2λ + 1. Then f (1) = −1 and f (2) = 1, so there exists a solution between 1
and 2. By numerical arguments, we can set λ ≈ 1.8 and get
 
2π λ λ2 + 2λ − 1
cos  max , , for any k  16.
k 2 2λ2

Distributed Construction. Let us consider GRN Gr (V ) where r(v) = R for each

v ∈ V (so Gr (V ) is symmetric). Directed GRN will be discussed at the end of this
section. Our distributed construction of a collision-free family for Gr (V ) is based on
the following idea. Consider a partition of R2 into squares small enough to guarantee
that in each square there is at most one node of V . Then we partition the set of such
small squares so that the distance between two squares in the same set of the partition
is at least 2R. Finally, consider the subsets of V obtained by collecting all nodes in the
same set of squares.
Let γ = min{d(u, v) : u, v ∈ V, u = v}. For any x ∈ R we define [x] as
the nearest integer to x. We now assume that each node knows its own position, the
transmission range R and the minimum distance γ. In the following protocol, ε > 0 is
an arbitrary small constant: we need it in order to have strict inequalities.

P ROTOCOL FOR √ NODE u (position (xu , yu ), transmission range R, min distance γ)

1 Define λ = γ/ 2 − ε;
2 Define k = (2R + ε)/λ + 1;
3 Define x̂u = [xu /λ] and ŷu = [yu /λ];
4 Return f (u) = (x̂u mod k, ŷu mod k);

Let us consider the family S = {Si,j }i,j=0,1,...,k−1 where Si,j = {u ∈ V : f (u) =

(i, j)}. We now show that S is a collision-free family.

Theorem 3.7. Family S is collision-free family of size O(R2 /γ 2 ) for Gr (V ).

Sketch of the Proof. By definition of k (line 2 of Protocol) we have that |S| = k 2 ∈

O(R2 /γ 2 ). Let u, v ∈ Si,j with u = v. Assume, by contradiction, that N out (u) ∩
N out (v) = ∅ and let w ∈ N out (u) ∩ N out (v). So d(u, w)  R and d(v, w)  R.
By triangular inequality we get d(u, v)  2R, but this is a contradiction, because since
u, v are two different nodes in the same set of the family, by construction it must be
d(u, v) > 2R.
We now show that when nodes are well spread, the size of the family is asymptotically
optimal.

Definition 3.8 (Well spread instances). Let V ⊆ R2 be a set of n points in the Eu-
clidean plane. Let γ and Γ be respectively the minimal and the maximal distance be-
tween two√ points in V . Let c be any positive constant, set V is said c-well spread if
Γ/γ  c n.

Observe that
√ square-grid networks are the most regular case of c-well spread instances
where c = 2 [CPS04].
 Optimal Gossiping in Directed GRN in Presence of Dynamical Faults 439

Theorem 3.9. If V ⊆ R2 is a c-well spread instance, then R2 /γ 2 ∈ O(c2 Δ), where Δ

is the maximal degree of Gr (V ).
Proof. There exists a disk of radius Γ that contains all the n nodes. That disk can be
covered with O(Γ 2 /R2) disks of radius R. Then there exists a disk U with radius R
2
such that it contains Ω nRΓ2 nodes. Since V is c-well spread, n/Γ 2 ∈ Ω(1/c2 γ 2 )
and so disk U contains Ω(R2 /c2 γ 2 ) nodes. It follows that R2 /γ 2 ∈ O(c2 Δ).
Our distributed construction also works for directed GRN where parameter R is re-
placed by the maximal node range Rmax . Theorem 3.7 holds with Rmax in place of R
and Theorem 3.9 holds with Rmin in place of R, where Rmin is the minimal node range.
Thus if Rmax ∈ O(Rmin ) the construction is still optimal.

4 Optimal Bounds
The results obtained in the previous two sections allow us to get optimal bounds for
fault-tolerant protocols.
Single-Message Model
Corollary 4.1. Given a directed GRN Gr (V ), there exists an explicit FG protocol hav-
ing completion time O(nΔ) and message complexity O(n2 ), where Δ is the maximal
in-degree of Gr (V ).
There exists a distributed FG protocol that, on any c-well spread symmetric GRN
Gr (V ), completes gossiping in O(nc2 Δ) time slots and has message complexity O(n2 ).
The protocol requires the knowledge of the minimal distance γ.
Theorem 4.2. For any sufficiently large n and Δ, such that n − Δ ∈ Ω(n), there exists
a GRN Gr (V ) of n nodes and maximal in-degree Δ such that, for any FG protocol for
Gr (V ), an adversary’s fault-pattern F exists such that the protocol is forced to execute
Ω(nΔ) time-slots and to have message complexity Ω(n2 ).
Combined-Message Model
Corollary 4.3. Given a directed GRN Gr (V ), there exists an explicit FG protocol hav-
ing completion time O(DΔ) and message complexity O(Dn), where D is the maximal
residual source eccentricity.
There exists a distributed FG protocol that, on any c-well spread symmetric GRN
Gr (V ), completes gossiping in O(Dc2 Δ) time slots and has message complexity
O(Dn). The protocol requires the knowledge of the minimal distance γ.
As for the (single) broadcast operation, the same protocols work in the same com-
pletion time while the message complexity reduces to O(n) that is optimal.
Theorem 4.4. For any n, Δ and D such that DΔ  n, there exists a GRN Gr (V ) of
n nodes and maximal in-degree Δ such that, for any FB protocol for Gr (V ), there are
a source s ∈ V and an adversary’s fault-pattern F , yielding source eccentricity D,
such that the protocol is forced to execute Ω(DΔ) time-slots and to have message
complexity Ω(n).
440 A.E.F. Clementi et al.

√
As for the case D · Δ > n, we observe that a lower bound Ω(n n) holds for FB proto-
cols on directed
√ GRN of unbounded maximal in-degree and residual source eccentricity
D = Θ( n). This result is an easy consequence of the lower bound for arbitrary graphs
proved in [CMS04]: The graph yielding such lower bound is indeed a GRN of maximal
in-degree Δ = Θ(n).

5 Open Questions
It is an open question whether the O(Dn) bound for the FG message complexity is op-
timal. Another future work is that of extending our distributed construction of collision-
free families to other important classes of radio networks. Finally, an interesting issue
is that of designing randomized FG protocols. Such protocols may yield a much better
completion time on the residual graph and, more importantly, they might have good
performances outside the residual graph too.

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 Another Random Document on
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 She did not understand but that made no difference. He often
talked over her head, but words were unimportant. The essential
thing was that he should be pleased with her and he was. She could
see that. Moreover, he wasn’t prejudiced against stray kittens.
“But I won’t show her to you until her eyes are better,” she said
wisely. “A smashed leg like Wiggles’ is sort of interesting when it’s all
bandaged up, but you’ve got to love a thing considerable much not
to mind sore eyes. If I ever get sick and stay sick a long time, I do
hope it’ll be a nice, clean, interesting kind of sickness—but what I’d
like best would be to be sitting out in the sunshine feeling happy and
then just not to be there—like Mr. Benderby. It was hard on Mrs.
Benderby, but wasn’t it perfectly lovely for him? Out under the big
apple tree he was, and it was all in bloom and there were orioles
nesting in it. I think that was wonderful, don’t you? I’d have liked
that for Mother—only it was so lovely for me to have a chance to
take care of her. I guess that’s why God doesn’t let everybody go in
beautiful ways. He knows they’re going to be so happy in a little
while that having been sick won’t count and He lets them go the
hard way so that the people who love them and are going to have to
stay on without them can have the comfort of taking care of them.”
“That’s one way of looking at it,” said Archibald.
They were occupying their favorite seat on the doorstep now.
Pegeen’s elbows were on her knees, her hands cupping her chin, her
eyes gazing out across the Valley.
“What do you think souls look like, Mr. Archibald?” she asked
suddenly.
Archibald considered the subject and acknowledged that he had
no theories on it.
“Well, I’ve thought about it lots,” Peg said cheerfully. Her
discussions of life, death, and immortality were always imperturbably
cheerful. Nothing morbid touched her. Life was a fact and death was
a fact and immortality was a fact. They were all vastly interesting.
Why not wonder about them and talk about them?
“I think most people have a horrid idea about souls, don’t you?”
she said. “Sort of foggy, lonesome things that go floating around
trying to be happy when they haven’t got anything to be happy with.
Honestly, that kind of souls would have just about as good a time in
heaven as Bill Briggs does at grange parties. They don’t have liquor
and he says he isn’t built for conversation. I think heaven’s going to
be heaps cozier than the ministers say. I’m counting on having legs
and hands and eyes and nose and everything, just the way I have
here, only no aches or freckles or anything, and only beautiful things
to feel and see and smell—and stacks of little child angels to see to,
so that we won’t miss having the old people and sick people to take
care of. I’m expecting to enjoy heaven and if I do it’ll have to be
mighty different from the way they tell about it.”
“I know a job in heaven that would suit you,” Archibald said, “but
another angel has it. Maybe he’d take you on to help.”
“Tell me,” she urged eagerly.
“Well, it’s in the Japanese heaven; but I suppose we’ll all be
talking the same language when we get over there so that won’t
shut you out. There’s a Japanese angel—Jizo, they call him,—and he
puts in his whole time playing with the souls of the little children that
come to heaven, so that they won’t be lonesome for their mothers.”
“Oh, my stars!” The small girl was all aglow. “What a bee-autiful
job! Wouldn’t it be cunning to see—all those blessed little baby souls
playing around and that big kind angel making up games for them
and seeing to them for God? But one angel couldn’t do it—not
possibly. Maybe he could when the world started and there weren’t
many children going to heaven, but now he’d have to have
somebody else. Oh, I do hope he’ll let me help. That’s the most
interesting thing I ever heard about heaven. Mostly it sounds stupid,
but I always did think God would be too sensible to let us all sit
around and rest forever. I wonder if that Jizo thought up his job for
himself and asked for it or if God just gave it to him. Mr. Frisbie says
the Japanese are awfully smart but that they’re ruining wages—only
I don’t suppose they bother about wages in heaven. I wouldn’t want
wages.”
Archibald rose and stretched himself, laughing down at the
earnest little face upturned to him.
“I’m willing to bet your month’s wages here that you’ll be given a
chance to take care of somebody in heaven,” he said. “They say the
seraphim are for adoration and the cherubim are for service. Well, I
can see you chumming with the cherubs.”
Pegeen looked perturbed.
“Miss Moran has pictures of them,” she said doubtfully. “They
aren’t anything but heads and wings.”
“That’s the painters’ fault. They couldn’t imagine anything as
beautiful as a cherub so they gave up before they got fairly started.”
The small girl on the doorstep nodded understanding and relief.
“You need legs and hands if you’re going to do much,” she said,
“and if I don’t set mine going you won’t have any supper.”
Wiggles and Spunky improved so rapidly under expert treatment
that bandages and boric acid were speedily put aside and the two
new members of the household were promoted from obscurity to
family intimacy.
A crow with an injured wing, and a squirrel rescued at the
eleventh hour from Wiggles, and two fluffy yellow chickens whose
hysterical mother had tramped on them during a panic over a
temporary scarcity of worms, were at various times added to the
family group, but the crow and the chickens and the squirrel were
merely transients. Once repaired, they went back to the wild life and
Mrs. Neal’s chicken yard, though Peterkin, the crow, came back
occasionally to sit on the birch tree by the kitchen door and caw at
Peg; and Jabberwok, the squirrel, had a nest in a near-by oak from
which he threw acorns at Wiggles with unerring aim.
Boots was a transient too, but he did not need bandaging or
doctoring and he stayed on as a day boarder for a long time.
Archibald almost stumbled over him one day as he came through
the woodshed after an early morning fishing excursion with Jimmy
Dawes. He had brought Jimmy home to breakfast and then came in
the back way, triumphantly waving creditable strings of trout.
A gurgle of appreciation sounded at Archibald’s feet and he
stepped back, hastily looking down into the round staring eyes of a
fat baby who sat comfortably strapped into a pine box and held out
chubby hands toward the shining fish.
“Well, I’ll be—” began the man. Then he remembered Jimmy,
and left the remark hanging in the air unfinished.
 “Hello!” commented Jimmy. “Going in for baby farming?”
“Peg!” Archibald’s voice held alarm and protest. It brought
Pegeen out from the kitchen, frying pan in hand.
“Hello, Jimmy! Going to stay for breakfast? My, what a lot of
fish!”
Suddenly she saw the question in Archibald’s face and her glance
followed his to the occupant of the box.
“Oh, yes,” she explained. “That’s Boots—Mrs. McKenzie’s Boots.
His mother’s sick and there isn’t anybody except old Granny
McKenzie and she can’t possibly do everything and take care of
Boots too. I ran over there this morning to see how sick Mrs.
McKenzie was and everything was a mess and the poor old lady was
most crazy. I’d have stayed, only of course there’s you; so I helped
tidy things up and then I just brought Boots along with me. I knew
you’d want me to. He won’t be a mite of trouble. I never saw such a
good baby. I can look after him here, daytimes and take him home
with me nights. He’s so cunning. Look at him laugh.”
She dropped on her knees beside the box and waggled her head
at the baby, who discarded his wide-eyed solemnity for a dimpling,
gurgling hilarity that would have disarmed the most confirmed baby
hater.
“What d’ you guess Jizo’d think of him?” Peg asked
enthusiastically. She was so happy in her new responsibility, so
utterly confident of Archibald’s readiness to share it with her, that
the protest faded out of him. He stooped and experimentally poked
at the baby’s ribs with a fishy forefinger which Boots promptly
grabbed, crowing in triumph as he held fast to it.
Something curious happened to the stooping man. He wasn’t at
all sure what it was but knew that it had to do with the feeling of
that tiny hand curled round his finger. The hand was so absurdly
small and soft and clinging. He had never noticed babies. People had
them, but they had always seemed to him one of the necessary
evils, mitigated in his own class by the existence of vigilant nurses
who kept their charges out of sight and hearing.
He wouldn’t have believed that there could be something
extraordinarily pleasant about having a baby hang fast to one’s
forefinger and jump up and down with pride in the feat.
“Strong little beggar, isn’t he?” he said with a shamefaced glance
at Jimmy that bespoke masculine sympathy for his embarrassment
But Jimmy was used to babies.
“Jolly kid!” he said, swinging his string of fish toward the baby
who abandoned Archibald’s finger to clutch at the slippery prize. “I’ll
fix the trout for you, Peg.”
Archibald straightened up and looked at the boy admiringly.
Nothing disturbed Jimmy’s cheerful nonchalance—but then Jimmy
had not a strange baby deposited, without warning, in his family
circle. He would eat his breakfast and go home, but the baby,
apparently, was to stay at the shack.
“What did you call him, Peg?” the alleged Head of the Family
asked feebly.
“Well, his name’s Bruce,—after the spider man, you know. The
McKenzies are Scotch. But they call him ‘Boots.’ Baby talk’s silly but I
do think Boots is a nice funny little name, don’t you?”
She went back to the kitchen with Jimmy, and Archibald followed,
with a backward glance at the baby who resigned himself
philosophically to the desertion and settled back among the pillows
with the evident intention of going to sleep at once.
“Good old Boots!” murmured the man to whom philosophy had
always come hard.
As he washed his hands at the kitchen pump, he eyed his
forefinger with a whimsical smile. Queer little thing, a baby’s hand.
He could imagine that if the baby happened to be a man’s own—
after all, perhaps even neighboring wasn’t the last word. Human
brotherhood was a big thing, but a man’s own—
“D’ you like them fried in corn meal, Mr. Archibald?” called
Pegeen.
He said that he did.

VIII
 The horses came from town and, though stabled by Mr. Neal,
were in a way additional members of the shack family.
“For a man who fled to the country to be alone, this is going
some,” Archibald said to himself, as for the first time he rode up the
meadow path, leading a second saddled horse. Pegeen and Wiggles
and Spunky and Boots and Peterkin—who was not yet well enough
to respond to the call of the wild, were all on hand to welcome the
new animals, and Archibald’s eyes twinkled as he viewed the
collection.
“This is where you take your first riding lesson, Peg. I’m going to
put you on Zip,” he said gaily. “Will the menagerie break loose if you
take your eye off it? Suppose the baby should choke the pup and the
pup should bite the cat and the cat should eat the crow?”
“They’ll be good,” promised Pegeen comfortably as she loosened
the baby’s strangle-hold on the pup. “Aren’t those horses splendid? I
wonder how Susy feels about them. It’s real hard on her, I think,
having them come into her own barn, putting on city airs, and
saying snippy things about farm horses and farm ways.—I’ll bet they
do. They look that way—sort of proud and finicky and stuck up, but
maybe the country’ll do them lots of good. They’re most certain to
like Susy after they really get to know her. She’s so sensible and
nice.”
“Sure thing,” agreed Archibald. “Nothing like living in the country
for giving one a sense of values.”
Peggy’s face was flushed with excitement. Her lips and eyes were
brimming with smiles as she waited to be tossed up to the saddle.
“I’ve been on Susy and on Mr. Frisbie’s Dick,” she said, her voice
trembling a little with eagerness, “but never on a real, prancy riding
horse like Zip.”
“Not afraid?” Archibald asked, noticing the quiver of the voice.
She looked surprised.
“Afraid? Me? Not a bit. Some way or other I always forget to be
afraid of things till afterwards; but I’m so excited that my throat’s all
shirred up in puckers.”
For an hour he taught her the laws of bit and bridle and saddle
and horse nature; and she took to it all, as a duck takes to water,
quick, fearless, bubbling over with joy.
“You’ll make a horsewoman, Peg,” Archibald said, as he lifted her
down from the saddle at last. “I’ll have you jumping fences, before
the summer is over.”
“Miss Moran used to. She’d make her horse jump anything. Mr.
Meredith and she didn’t pay a bit of attention to fences—unless
there was something they didn’t want to trample down.”
Archibald turned to her quickly.
“Meredith? Who’s Meredith?”
Pegeen settled herself comfortably for a bit of gossip. She loved
to tell Archibald about people. He was always so interested.
“Why, he’s the one that’s going to marry Miss Moran,” she
explained. “Anyway, that’s what everybody thinks; but they don’t
seem to be in a very big hurry about it. He’s awfully rich and he goes
scooting off to Europe and around the world and everywhere; but he
comes up here every summer and stays a long while—over in
Pittsfield. I guess he couldn’t stand boarding anywhere around here.
He looks as if he’d be real particular. But he comes over most every
day in a motor car, and he and Miss Moran have perfectly beautiful
times. He’s lots older than she is—only I don’t believe he’s as old as
his hair is. It’s gray; but his face doesn’t match it very well—except
his eyes. Sometimes they look sort of old and sad. He’s real
handsome—and nice too; only he’s nice in a proud way—not a bit
like you. I couldn’t ever see to him. I wouldn’t suit—but he’d buy me
anything I needed—if somebody’d tell him I needed it. I guess most
rich people are like that. They want to be kind to poor folks, but they
don’t know how. I don’t see how you ever found out exactly the
right way. It isn’t just giving money. It’s being friends. Mr. Meredith
couldn’t neighbor the way you do, no matter how hard he tried. Miss
Moran takes him around to see folks and he’s as nice and polite as
can be; but everybody knows he’s come just to please her and that
he’ll never come again unless she brings him. He gave the money
for the free library down in Pisgah and he fixed up the schoolhouse,
and when Joe Daniels got hurt last summer Mr. Meredith had a big
doctor come all the way from New York to mend Joe’s back, and
when the Potters were going to be put out of their house and hadn’t
a bit of money he paid off the mortgage and got Mr. Potter a job
over in Pittsfield—but he didn’t do any of it for the Valley. He did it
for Miss Moran. I’ll bet he wouldn’t know Joe Daniels or Mr. Potter if
he’d meet them on the road. So, you see, nobody bothers about
being grateful to him. They’re just grateful to Miss Moran. I suppose
she’s grateful to him, and that’s all he wants; but I’d hate not to get
more fun out of doing things for people than he does. I’d want to
see them being happy because I’d done the things, wouldn’t you?
My stars, but I do love to see people being happy, when it’s my
doings.”
“What makes you think Miss Moran is going to marry him?”
Archibald asked. He did not seem as interested in abstract
discussions as he usually did.
“Why, anybody can see that he wants her to.”
“And she?”
Pegeen thought it over.
“Well, I don’t know that she wants to so very hard; but I guess
she doesn’t mind. He’s so awfully good to her and she’s known him
for years and years and her father thought a heap of him—Ellen told
me that—and you know it’s nice and comfortable to have somebody
looking out for you and loving you better than anything. Miss Moran
gets lonesome sometimes. It’s all right about neighboring, but you
do need somebody special—only it seems as if I’d like to be more
excited about it, if I were going to marry anybody—and I’d want him
younger. Gray hair’s elegant looking; but I think a lover ought to
have brown hair, don’t you? Yellow wouldn’t be as bad as gray; but
I’d choose brown.”
“Did Ellen tell you anything else about him?” Pegeen shook her
head.
“Nothing much. Ellen never does talk much; but I asked her one
day whether Miss Moran had known Mr. Meredith a long time and
that’s how she came to tell me about her father’s thinking so much
of him. I don’t believe Ellen wants them to get married.”
“Why not?” There was a note of eagerness in Archibald’s voice.
“Oh, I don’t know. She said he was a fine man and all; but that
springtime was mating time; and then she folded up her lips the way
she does when she doesn’t like things.”
Archibald dropped the subject, mounted his horse, and took Zip’s
bridle rein.
“I’m going over to see whether Miss Moran feels like riding,” he
said crisply. There was an aggressive air about him as he rode away,
and Pegeen watched him with puzzled eyes until he disappeared
around a bend in the road. Then she seated herself and tried to
accommodate Boots and Wiggles and Spunky in her small gingham
lap, all at one time.
“Wiggles,” she said seriously, “I don’t believe he liked it about Mr.
Meredith. No, sir; he didn’t like it one bit. Do you suppose?—Oh, my
stars, Wiggles, wouldn’t it be lovely?” She patted Boots’ back with an
experienced hand until he had traveled far into Slumberland. Then
she turned once more to the pup, who sat waiting with his head on
one side and his intelligent brown eyes fixed on her face.
“Wiggles,” she said, “you can bite Mr. Meredith when he comes. I
won’t care.”
The pup gave an ecstatic lunge and licked her cheek with his
wet, red tongue. She laughed, as she wiped off the kiss.
“I was sure you’d love to bite him,” she said approvingly, “only
you’d better do it when he hasn’t got that white bull terrier of his
with him. Jimmy says it’s a terrible fighter.”

The Smiling Lady felt like riding. She felt so much like it that she
sparkled in the most amazing way at the mere mention of it.
“Such beauties,” she said, leaning across the porch railing to pat
the horses. “And how fine for Peggy to learn to ride! She wasn’t
afraid, was she?”
“Afraid? Peg?” Archibald laughed the idea to scorn.
“Yes; that’s so,” agreed the Smiling Lady. “She’s Irish. We’re the
reckless lot. It’s only ourselves we’ve to fear. Just a few minutes, and
I’ll get my habit.”
She ran upstairs and Archibald, waiting, heard her singing
somewhere, gay lilting snatches of song that told of joy at the heart
of her.
 In ten minutes a slim boyish figure came out upon the porch.
She was all in brown from the crown of her soft felt hat to the toes
of her smart tan boots. The long coat had been made by a tailor
who knew his business. The soft shirt and stock were eminently
correct. She was well turned out, this young Amazon.
A light pressure of a boot in his hand and she was in the saddle.
A moment more and they were off into the sweet of Summitland.
“I’ll take you along the back road and up Witch Hill,” she said. “It
has the name of names for it, and how that ever happened I can’t
imagine. The loveliest places usually have the worst names. There’s
Hog Hill Road. It’s a dream of loveliness, and how any one ever had
the heart to turn hogs loose on it! Of course they say it’s the hog
back shape of the hill that gave it its name, but when I ride there,
even on the heavenliest day, I fancy I hear gruntings. Now Witch
Road is all magic. It lives up to its name. There’s a tradition that
once upon a time an old witch lived in a little hut that’s crumbling
away beside the road at the hilltop. I’ve an idea she threw a spell
over the whole hill and it lingers. There’s Ezra Watts!”
“Good morning, Mr. Watts!”
A man, standing in the doorway of a dilapidated little house over
whose forlornness a willow wept miserably, muttered an almost
inaudible salutation. His weak, evil face did not lighten even for the
Smiling Lady. Slouching, ragged, dirty, he stood in the sunshine like
a blot on the summer day, and stared out at the riders sullenly from
under a matted thatch of thick, straggling, black hair.
“Pleasant, friendly chap!” Archibald commented lightly.
The Smiling Lady sighed.
And then they forgot him, for they turned from the sunshiny back
road, into an enchanted wood where a wide mossy trail wound
gently, gently upward through shifting light and shade. Moist,
pungent wood scents haunted the air. The gurgle of running water,
insistent, mirthful, told that hidden among the ferns and mosses a
brook followed the road companionably.
“It comes out into the open farther up,” the girl said as she
listened, “but down here it hides just for the fun of the thing.”
 “A naiad’s trick,” Archibald suggested. “Probably there are fauns
abroad.”
“No; only the Little People,” she corrected. “I’m all for Irish fairies
myself. The poets and the artists and the mythology classes have
taken the heart out of the Greek ideas, but the Celts—Oh, well,
we’ve had our own troubles with poets, but they haven’t killed and
stuffed all our gods and heroes and Little People yet. Father and I
used to spend months in Ireland every year and I’ve heard such
tales there—Oh, such tales! I’d always the hope of seeing the Little
People myself or of stepping off into the Green World, and finding
my way to Tir ’nan Og. Things like that seem so possible in Ireland,
and some way or other Witch Mill is the same for me. It’s full of
shapes I can’t quite see and voices I can’t quite hear, and I look and
listen and wait. I’m always excited up here. The wonderful thing
might happen any moment. There are places like that, you know!”
She was talking lightly but there were dreams in her eyes.
Archibald’s thoughts ran back to the girl of the puppies and
kittens and babies in the birch wood, to the girl of the fireside
confidence and the Irish love songs, to the gay, grubby girl of the
vegetable garden, to the girl of the June roses and the heart for
neighboring. Then he came back to the girl of the boyish clothes and
the dreaming face who rode beside him up the Witch Way, listening
and looking and waiting for the Wonderful Thing; and he too found it
easy to believe in wonders. The enchanted wood was having its way
with him.
Up and up they climbed. The road rose very gradually, winding
its leisurely way through glades and glens, losing itself among pine
shadows, loafing across sunlit clearings; and always at its side was
the brook, whispering and chuckling and hinting at mysteries.
“It comes from a great spring at the very top of the hill beside
the witch’s cottage,” the Smiling Lady said as she leaned to watch
the sunlight playing over smooth brown stones beneath the liquid
green of a fern-fringed pool.
“I usually lunch up there—and by the same token I’ve
sandwiches in my pockets now. Nature worship’s an appetizing thing
and Ellen knows it, but I didn’t give her time to do her best to-day
and it’s a nuisance to carry more than sandwiches anyway. Supper
will be waiting when we go home.”
“You come up here often?” the man asked. Back of the question
there was an eagerness, even a protest. It had occurred to him that
Meredith and she had ridden up this way and lunched beside the
Witch’s Well; and there was something about the idea that he found
unpleasant, most unpleasant.
“Oh, yes, often,” she was saying.—“Or at least I did come when I
had my horse. It’s a long walk and the road isn’t very practicable for
driving. I’ve had beautiful days up here.”
He could not ask with whom she had shared them and he
assured himself stoutly that the matter was of no importance to him
anyway—only, of course, a man whom Peg and Nora didn’t like—
Personally, he was altogether unconcerned. Oh, altogether—still he
rather hoped she had not brought Meredith up Witch Way.
The road found the hilltop at last and wandered off,
inconsequently along the ridge; but the brook and the Girl and the
Man stayed behind at the Witch’s Well.
It lay cool and gleaming among moss-covered rocks. Little ferns
and lush green grasses crept down between the rocks to peer into
the water. A great old tree flung shadows down upon it. Under the
tree a mossy cushion invited, promised.
The Smiling Lady slipped from her saddle before Archibald could
reach her and dropped down beside the well with a sigh of content.
When the man came back from tying the horses in the shade, she
was leaning against the huge tree trunk, her hat thrown on the
ground beside her—a Rosalind in ultra modern doublet and hose and
fair enough to justify an Orlando in hanging verses on all the trees of
the enchanted wood.
Pegeen had been quite truthful. “Sometimes they did show.” For
an instant a vision of the polite and embarrassed bachelor clergyman
in Pisgah, of the perturbed ladies’ aid society and the agitated Valley
censors caused Archibald’s lips to twitch nervously, but he
smothered the smile at its birth and stretched himself out luxuriously
on the moss at the neatly booted feet.
 Even in riding breeches and boots she was more utterly without
self-consciousness, more simply, adorably feminine than any other
woman in muslin and blue ribbons. It would be blind virtue that
could call the Smiling Lady immodest.
“I could have loved that witch,” he said lazily, closing his eyes the
better to feel the moss beneath his head and the breeze on his
cheeks and to hear the drip, drip of water trickling among the rocks,
and then opening them hastily not to lose sight of the face against
the background of rugged bark.
“I’ve felt that way myself,” the girl confessed.—“A woman who
would come away up here into the quiet places and settle down with
the forest at her back and the spring near her door and the whole
Valley spread out before her eyes!
“It’s a heavenly sweet place to sit on a summer’s day, weaving
spells, isn’t it? They say she was old and ugly, but I think that was
only when she went down among the Valley folk. Up here she must
have been young and beautiful and she smiled a wonderful smile as
she worked enchantment. I’m sure of it.”
“It’s believable,” admitted the man who was watching her face. It
was easy, astonishingly easy, for him to believe in a witch who was
young and beautiful and who sat on a hilltop smiling and working
enchantment.
They idled the afternoon away with talk and laughter and drowsy
silences; and being very humanly hungry in the midst of all the
glamour, they finally ate Ellen’s six sandwiches and sighed for more.
“The next time,” said the Smiling Lady, “we will bring a knapsack
luncheon and make tea.”
“The next time!” He liked the promise in it.
She rose to her knees and leaning over the spring cupped her
hands and drank.
“You knew,” she said seriously, looking back across her shoulder
at Archibald, “that it’s the Well at the World’s End?”
“I guessed it,” he said as seriously.
“And whoso drinks the nine drops shall win his heart’s desire,
At the Well o’ the World’s End,”
she quoted softly. Then she leaned toward him, laughing, and
touched his lips nine times with the cool wet forefinger of a dripping
hand.
For one reckless moment, he was tempted to seize the daring
hand, to hold it fast and kiss it, from pink finger tips to blue veined
wrist. With any other woman he had ever known he would have
dared it, with any other woman the thing would have been a
challenge—but he looked into the laughing face so near him, and
buried his hands in the moss beside him.
She was different. It was too much to risk—this blessed
comradeship. He did not dare.
“Shall win his heart’s desire,” he echoed. “And if he does not
know the desire of his heart?”
“One day he will learn it and then he will be glad of the nine
drops from the Well o’ the World’s End.”
Archibald closed his eyes and lay quiet, but there was tumult in
his thoughts. In May he had been so sure that he knew the face of
his heart’s desire, had been mad with the beauty of it, hungered and
thirsted for it, broken heart and spirit in pursuit of it In May!—Now,
in July, he could feel the cool touch of the nine drops from the Well
o’ the World’s End without any stirring of the old longing, any throb
of the old pain. The fever had died quite out of him and the face
that looked at him from that faraway Maytime, was beautiful—but
not the face of his heart’s desire.
The Happy Valley had done it. The Happy Valley and Pegeen and
his Smiling Lady, and he was ashamed to have been so quickly
cured, so light of love, yet glad with the gladness of one who
wakens from long illness and pain and fevered dreams, to
consciousness and peace and the face of a friend.
He opened his eyes and looked up at the Smiling Lady. “The face
of a friend.” The thought did not quite satisfy him. Friendship
seemed lukewarm business for Witch Hill.
“I wonder,” he said, “whether you are as understanding as you
seem.”
The laughter died out of her face. She looked at him with quiet
eyes and waited. She was used to confidences, this girl whom the
Valley loved and trusted.
“Could you understand a man’s having made a fool of himself
over a woman—all kinds of a fool—tossing aside his ideals and
ambitions and hopes for love of her, letting her fool him to the limit
—and then crawling away into hiding with his hurt and his
bitterness?”
The Smiling Lady nodded gravely.
“Yes,” she said; “I could understand that.”
The man raised himself on his elbow and looked into the quiet
eyes. There were incredulity, wonder, and something that was part
shame, part gladness, and wholly boyish in his face.
“But if the man, after all his struggle and unhappiness, should
suddenly find himself whole, clean quit of the pain and the desire,
glad of life again and eager for happiness—could you understand
that? This is a place for oracles. Read me the riddle. What is a man
worth to whom that thing can happen?”
There was self-contempt in his voice, but pleading in his eyes.
Perhaps, in her merciful heart, this Smiling Lady could find charity
for a man who had wasted himself on a love that had not even the
excuse of greatness.
“He is worthy of what he can win,” the girl said gently.
“Nothing less Delphic than that for a man with the nine drops on
his lips?” Archibald urged. She shook her head.
“There’s no promise that the water will give him whatever he
happens to want,” she said. “He’s to win his heart’s desire; but he
must prove that he knows the one desire of his heart and is worthy
of it, before it is given to him.—That’s the way I’d read the riddle.”
He thought it over and nodded assent.
“That’s fair—but when he has proved it?—”
She sprang to her feet and stood looking out over the Valley.
“Then he will meet the Wonderful Thing,” she said. She laughed
as she said it, striving to put their talk back into the realm of
whimsy; but her eyes were very sweet, and looking down into them
the man, who had risen and stood beside her, had a vague glimpse
of the Wonderful Thing coming to meet him along mysterious,
enchanted ways.
 They rode home through the sunset, and Archibald stayed for
supper in the house among the maples, but after that moment on
the hilltop, their talk was all of impersonal things. The girl led and
the man followed. They discussed the advisability of draining the
east meadow and the probable effect of spraying the cabbages with
kerosene emulsion and the Valley’s need of a social center. Not for
an instant was sentiment allowed to show its head, yet Archibald
went back to the shack with a singing heart He wakened the next
morning with an odd sense of having journeyed in a far country and
come back to a familiar world where all was not quite as it had been
before his going; and, puzzling over the change, he came face to
face with the truth. He was in love with the Smiling Lady. He had
been in love with her ever since his first glimpse of her; but it had
taken Witch Hill magic to clear the fog from his brain. He sprang
from bed hastily, eager to be up and about, in a world new made;
and Pegeen, in the kitchen, heard him whistling gaily as he dressed.
The past clutched at him and he shook it off with a laugh. Ghosts
were foolish, futile things—but his whistle ceased abruptly on a high
note as, looking eagerly into the future, he was confronted by a man
with graying hair and tired eyes. He had forgotten Meredith; and, for
a moment, the thought of him sluiced his warm happiness with
chilling doubt; but he shook it off, too. Hadn’t the nine drops
touched his lips and wasn’t he sure now, sure beyond possibility of
mistake, that he knew his heart’s desire?
His mood of exultant happiness lasted until he met Nora Moran
again. Then its glad certainty wavered and doubts came creeping in;
for things, in the prosaic Valley world, were not as they had been on
Witch Hill. In some mysterious way, his lady had clothed herself in
aloofness. It was not that she was not kind. There was nothing of
which he could take hold, nothing of which he could demand an
explanation. She was very friendly, very gracious, but the old
intimacy was lacking and not, by any force or strategy, could he
manage to see her alone. For some reason, she had gone within
herself and gently closed the door; and, though he rebelled against
her withdrawal, he was afraid he understood it. She had taken
alarm, there beside the Witch’s Well, had realized that he wanted
more than friendship, and, being promised to another man— Yes;
that must be it. She was not free and she wanted to warn him in
time, before there could be need of words, before he could give her
face to his heart’s desire and take the wrong road for happiness.
That was like the Smiling Lady. She was no cheap coquette. It
was not in her to deal unfairly. If she had given her love, even if she
had given only her promise to some one else, then she was doing
only what a woman like her would do; and he must accept it as a
man she could make her friend would accept it. Only—there was a
chance that he was misreading her mood, that gossip was wrong,
that Meredith was nothing more to her than an old and dear friend.
While there was a doubt, one might fight against exile.
In his perplexity he turned to Ellen. She had always shown her
liking for him. She would tell him the truth, unless loyalty to her
mistress forbade. One afternoon, when he had ridden up to the
house among the maples only to be told that its lady was out and
away somewhere, he spoke what was in his thought.
“What is it, Ellen?”
The old woman looked at him kindly with her shrewd, far-seeing
eyes, but was noncommittal.
“Sure, there’s nothin’, sir. Herself is away somewhere for a walk.
She’s fair set on roamin’ these days.”
He brushed evasion aside.
“Tell me, Ellen, if you can tell me without betraying confidence;
Is Miss Moran engaged to this Mr. Meredith of whom I hear?”
The homely Irish face softened to sympathy for an instant, then
went back to its reserve.
“She is that, sir.”
There were other questions burning his lips, but he forced them
back. One does not ask a servant whether her mistress loves the
man she means to marry.
“Thank you, Ellen,” he said simply, as he turned away. He was in
the saddle, when the woman who had stood watching him stepped
to his side.
“’Twas her father’s doin’, God rest his soul,” she said. Before he
could answer, she had gone swiftly into the house.
 Archibald rode away, repeating the words to himself. “’Twas her
father’s doin’.” Now, why had she told him that? Did she mean him
to understand that the girl’s own heart was not in the marriage? Did
she think that it lay in his power to interfere? Did she believe that
her mistress cared more for him than for the man she had promised
to marry? For a moment or two, his heart beat high. Then again it
was a leaden weight. The Smiling Lady was not to be swept off her
feet by any lover. Since she had given her word to Meredith, perhaps
to her father too,—No; she would not listen, if he should plead; and,
even if she would, there were things no fellow could do. He had
never believed that all was fair either in love or in war.
It was Mrs. Neal who brought him word of Meredith’s arrival. She
billowed into the shack one morning to borrow some coffee and
settled into the largest of the chairs to rest and gossip, while Pegeen
went after the coffee.
“Met Miss Moran’s beau yet?” she asked. “No? Well, I guess he
just come yesterday. They went by our house this morning and she
stopped to ask about a ham I’d promised her. Pretty as a picture,
she looked. Pinkish, soft sort of a veil around her head, and her
cheeks pinker. They make a mighty hansome couple. I’ll say that for
them, even if he is mite old for her. I should say he’d make a first-
rate husband—kind as any woman could ask. You can see that in his
face and in his ways, only he can’t help being quiet and a little bit
stiff—kind of like a pudding where you’ve used too much gelatin but
got the flavor all right. John, that works down at Miss Moran’s, told
Neal last night that he’d heard they was going to be married this fall
and go off to Egypt or some heathen place like that for the winter. I
tell you, the Valley’ll miss Miss Moran.”
“Yes; she’ll be missed.” Archibald admitted.
“Peggy,” he said, after their neighbor had gone away, “you’ll have
to keep me hard at my gardening and my neighboring. It isn’t going
to be easy for me to be contented all the time.”
“Yessir.” There was a trace of anxiety in her ready smile.
Something was wrong in his face and voice and she was quick to
notice it. “The garden doesn’t need much now; but neighbors always
need a lot. Shall we go and see the Kelleys this afternoon? He’s up
now; but he isn’t well enough to work and she says he gets awfully
lonesome and discouraged.”
In their way to the Kelleys they stopped at the house under the
maples. Archibald proposed it. He wanted to meet the man the
Smiling Lady was going to marry; wanted to meet him and have
done with it. When a dream refused to lie down decently and die of
its own accord, the thing to do with it was to kill it and the sooner,
the better.
So he and Pegeen made their call on the Smiling Lady, finding a
warm welcome—and Richard Meredith, which was what Archibald
had expected. He took the measure of the man, as he shook hands
with him and, involuntarily, his hand tightened. This was a man. He
liked the quiet manner, the quiet voice, the air of distinction, the
refinement and strength of the mouth, the kindness in the eyes—
but, as he noted the fine lines about the kind eyes and the gray hair
above them, his heart cried out Ellen’s protest. Springtime was
mating time.
The Smiling Lady was quiet, too, that afternoon. She and
Archibald talked together over the teacups, while Pegeen sat in the
hammock with Richard Meredith—at his invitation; and the teacup
talk of casual things was punctuated by gay little peals of laughter
from the child and deeper answering laughter from the man beside
her. They seemed to be getting on famously together, those two.
“Do you know,” Pegeen announced to Archibald, when an hour
later they rode away, “I honestly believe I could see to Mr. Meredith
after all. I never really talked to him before and he isn’t a bit the
way I thought he was. He isn’t proud inside atall; and, if he wasn’t
going to marry Miss Moran, so that he can’t possibly need anything,
I’d think he sort of needed seeing to. There’s a lonesomey look in his
eyes.”
“That’s better than a lonesomey feeling in his heart,” Archibald
said with a shade of bitterness in his voice. Meredith was all right;
but he didn’t care to hear Peggy praising him.
They turned into the back road as he spoke; and, far ahead, by
the roadside, he saw a willow tree mourning forlornly over a tumble-
down cottage. A sudden whim seized him.
 “Why don’t you take him on?” the Smiling Lady had asked.
Perhaps, some very strenuous neighboring would be good for this
bitter mood of his.

IX
“Peg,” Archibald said, “let’s call on Ezra Watts.”
She looked surprised, a bit doubtful, but her sporting blood rose.
“All right,” she agreed promptly. “He won’t let us neighbor and I
expect the dirt’s something terrible; but I’d just as soon.”
As they dismounted in front of the cottage, Ezra’s terrier came
running out of the door. He was barking, but not angrily—urgently
rather.
“You’d think he was inviting us in,” Pegeen said, as she watched
the dog run toward the door, come back to bark eagerly, and run
forward again.
“More hospitable than his master, I should say,” Archibald
commented. “I wonder if the man is home.”
They reached the door which stood partly open, and rapped on
it.
No sound came from within. Archibald rapped again. The terrier
ran through the opening and barked encouragement across his
shoulder.
“I believe something’s the matter,” said Pegeen suddenly. “Let’s
go in.”
She pushed the door open and before Archibald could stop her
stepped inside. He followed her and they stood in a filthy little room
that had once been the parlor of the house. Moldy paper was
hanging from the walls. Much of the plaster had fallen from the
ceiling and lay where it fell. One or two rickety chairs were the only
attempt at furnishing and the accumulated dirt of years littered the
floor.
No one was in sight, but the dog ran on into a back room and
from there the intruder heard a low mumbling voice.
 “Stay here, Peg,” Archibald said authoritatively. “He’s drunk.”
But her instinct drove her quickly forward, in spite of his
command.
“He’s sick,” she said.
Standing in the second doorway they looked into a room as dirty
and neglected as the first, but they did not notice walls or ceiling or
floor, for on a cot by the farther wall lay Ezra Watts, haggard,
ghastly, purple-faced, unseeing, tossing restlessly on an unspeakably
dirty bed and muttering meaningless things.
With a little cry of pity, Pegeen ran toward him, but Archibald
caught her in his arms and lifting her bodily, carried her into the next
room.
“Listen, Peg,” he said quietly, as he put her down. “The man has
fever. There’s no telling what the disease is. I can’t have you taking
chances. You can help most by getting on Zip and riding down to
Miss Moran’s to telephone for Doctor Fullerton. Tell him what’s
wrong and that I want him at once. Then ask Miss Moran for some
old linen she can spare and some soap and bring them to me.”
“But you’re going to stay,” she protested.
“And who’ll take care of me if I get sick unless you keep in shape
for it?”
The argument was overwhelming. She allowed him to lift her to
the saddle and pelted away down the road at a breakneck pace,
while Archibald went back into the house.
He found an old stove in the kitchen and made a fire in it Then
he filled a kettle with fresh water and set it over the fire.
Whatever the doctor’s verdict was, hot water was sure to be
needed in that house.
Pegeen was back in a few minutes.
“Miss Moran and Mr. Meredith have gone motoring,” she said
breathlessly, as Archibald lifted her from the horse, “but Ellen’s
coming. John’s going to bring her over in the cart. I’ve got some
sheets and towels and a blanket and a cake of soap, but she’ll have
more linen and scrubbing brushes and lots of cleaning things. There
comes the doctor now. I hear his car.”
 A muddy battered roadster came plunging up the crooked road
at reckless speed and a tall, wiry, competent-looking man sprang out
of it.
“Just caught me. I was rolling out of the yard when they yelled
after me. Didn’t even have to crank up. So the germs have downed
Ezra at last! Nature does get back at a man in time. Lord, what a
hole!”
He went briskly through the front room, growling anathemas at
the foulness, and bent over the tossing, muttering man on the bed
with as lively an interest as though the patient had not been the
black sheep of the Valley.
A body was a body to Dr. Fullerton, and his business was saving
bodies. The harder the battle, the greater his interest and
enjoyment. As to the value of the salvage to the community—that
was the community’s business.
“I’ll patch up the tenements,” he said to the gentle, nervous, little
Protestant minister in Pisgah. “It’s up to you and Father Rafferty to
see that your people lead decent lives in them.”—But when the little
man or the priest needed backing up with work or money, it was
usually Dr. Fullerton who lent the hand or the dollars.
He was all doctor as he examined Ezra Watts, keen eyed, deft
fingered, intent, but as he straightened himself and looked down at
the dirty, unshaven face, the keenness gave way to kindliness in his
eyes.
“Nothing contagious,” he said shortly. “Pneumonia with some
complications. Not much show for him except in his tough
constitution. He never did drink, for all his cussedness; and that’s in
his favor now. Fed himself enough, such as it was and it was plain
food with no knick-knacks. That counts for him too. It’s the high-
living, robust fellows that wink out with pneumonia. Shouldn’t
wonder if we’d pull him through provided we can get him clean
without killing him. Got to have a scrubber and a nurse here and
quick about it.”
“How about me?” Archibald asked. “Strong and willing at
scrubbing and nursing but not a professional in either line.”
 “Call Peggy,” ordered the doctor. “She’s one of my best nurses;
but you and I’ll have to turn in and give him a bath before we hand
him over to her.”
Archibald found Pegeen fairly dancing with eagerness and
impatience on the doorstep. “Oh, my stars, I’m so glad it isn’t
catching,” she said, darting past him into the sick room. “I couldn’t
have stood it not to be able to see him. There’s such a splendid lot
to do. It’s awful when there isn’t anything you can do but sit around
and wait. This is the very best chance I ever had.”
“Well, you keep the fire roaring in the kitchen,” ordered the
doctor, “and warm some of those towels and the blanket for us and
see that there’s plenty of hot water. Archibald and I are going to give
Ezra’s system the worst shock it has had since childhood. After that’s
over, you can help us clean the front room a bit and move him in
there.”
She flew into the kitchen with the towels and blanket, quick,
noiseless, radiant.
Dr. Fullerton grinned as he watched her go.
“Funny what a passion for seeing to people that youngster has,”
he said, “and what a corker she is at it, too. She’s helped me in
some tight places, child as she is. Once it was sewing a man up—
bad mowing-machine accident. His wife couldn’t stand by; but Peg
could. White as a sheet, but never batted an eye until she’d done all
I needed. Then she went away quietly into the yard and keeled over
in a faint—but not till her job was done, mind you. That’s Peg.”
Ellen and John arrived during the progress of the bath, and,
within an hour, the sick man lay between white, lavender-scented
sheets in a room that, while forlorn, was amazingly clean.
“When he comes out of the fever, he’ll think he’s died and gone
to hell,” Dr. Fullerton prophesied. “A clean eternity would be about
the worst future Ezra could figure out. Who’s going to look after him,
while I see to some of my other patients?”
“Me,” announced Peg, making up in enthusiasm what she lacked
in grammer. “Boots is at Mrs. Neal’s and it won’t hurt Wiggles and
Spunky and Peterkin to go without supper once, and Ellen’ll give you
some supper, Mr. Archibald. Won’t you, Ellen?”
 “Miss Nora would want me to be staying here,” protested Ellen.
Archibald settled the question.
“Peg and I will stay,” he said, “and maybe Ellen will send John
over with a bite for us. We’ll have provisions in here by to-morrow
and the back room fit to be lived in. He couldn’t be moved, I
suppose, Doctor?”
Dr. Fullerton shook his head.
“Finish him,” he said. “I’ll have Miss Kirby down from Albany to-
morrow morning. She’s the only nurse I know who likes cases of this
sort—eats ’em up. Can’t be too bad for her. Only thing she balks at is
a sick millionaire. Abnormal woman, but a rattling good nurse.”
“Couldn’t I—” began Pegeen. She looked woefully disappointed.
“You couldn’t.” The doctor was firm. “Not until after he’s over the
ridge one way or the other. Then there’ll be enough for you and
anybody that applies. Just shows what a frost virtue is. I’ve had
highly respectable patients neglected and here’s a spirited contest
for the privilege of taking care of Ezra, who’s as worthless a
customer as you’d find in a day’s journey.”
“Oh, Doctor, he’s so sick!” Pegeen was distressed, shocked.
“But he’s not dead. It’s only after they’re dead that we can’t
speak ill of them. I’m not going to let Ezra die, so I feel perfectly
free to tell the truth about him. There’s the medicine. Nothing much
to do at this stage of the game. I’ll be back in an hour and bring a
tank of oxygen down to have it handy. Don’t you fret, Peggy. He’s
going to rob many a hen-roost yet.”
He went away, driving in utter defiance of the speed laws. John
and Ellen drove off home, and Peg and Archibald sat down in two of
the rickety chairs near the bed upon which the transformed Ezra lay,
breathing heavily.
“This, Miss Pegeen O’Neill, is what comes of neighboring,” said
Archibald.
“Yes; isn’t it splendid?” Peg was important, shiny-eyed.
“Well, come to think of it, I don’t know but what it is,” admitted
the man.
“Doesn’t he look different when he’s clean?”—Pegeen lowered
her voice to sick-room pitch, but she was too excited to keep still
and Ezra would not hear.
“Even so he’s not beautiful,”—Archibald studied the face on the
pillow as he spoke. A weak, evil face it was even now when the
man’s spirit did not look out through his eyes, but Peg’s tender heart
could not find helplessness quite unbeautiful.
“I sort of think he was a good looking little boy,” she said. “His
nose is straight and nice and his mouth could have been real sweet
if he hadn’t spoiled it. I shouldn’t wonder a bit if his mother’d been
awfully proud of him when she got him all fixed up to go
somewhere.”
Her face was wistful, sweet with pity for the little boy of the long
ago, whom life had wrecked, and the picture her words had called
up made Archibald look at the sick man with kinder eyes.
“Oh, Peg! Peg!” he murmured softly, “what a friend to sinners
and weaklings you are!”
“They’ve got to have friends,” said Pegeen.
The doctor came back after a while. The Smiling Lady and
Richard Meredith came too, and Mrs. Benderby, after her day of
ironing and her three-mile walk home, toiled up the Back Road to
see if there was anything she could do to help. Mr. Neal rode over
and offered to spend the night, but, in the end, Archibald and the
doctor stayed. Pegeen, protesting stoutly, was carried off home by
Miss Moran.
“Nothing you could do to-night, Peggy,” said the doctor. “Save
your ammunition.”
Life and Death stood beside the bed in the little house on the
Back Road that night; but it was Death who turned and went away
in the gray of the morning.
“He’ll do now,” said the doctor, “but it was touch and go for a
while. The oxygen held him. Sometimes I wonder—”
His strong jaw set once more in fighting grimness— “But it isn’t
up to me to wonder. Beating Death, in a catch-as-catch-can, is my
end of the job, and I rather think I’ve downed him this time. What
life will do with the man is another story.”
“I’d like to help tell the story,”—Archibald had never stood by in
such a fight as the doctor had fought that night and the experience
had left him with a humble consciousness of his own uselessness, a
strong desire to play a manlier part.
Dr. Fullerton looked at him sharply from under heavy eyebrows
that gave his face a misleading fierceness.
“Don’t sentimentalize, man,” he said bluntly. “It takes people that
way sometimes—running up against Death and barely slamming the
door in his face—but don’t imagine the close shave will change Ezra
any more than his bath will. He’ll be as mean and as dirty as ever in
a few weeks. We’ve done our damnedest for him to-night, but we’re
the ones benefited by it. Life’s a doubtful blessing to Ezra. Help him
if you want to, but do it with your eyes open and because you want
to, not because you expect to reform him. He isn’t the reforming
kind.”
Archibald thought his words over after he had gone. Probably
they were true—but on their heels came other words. “I believe
there’s a decent scrap of Soul hidden away somewhere in Ezra,
hidden so deep that he himself doesn’t suspect it’s there,” Nora
Moran had said.
“I shouldn’t wonder a bit if his mother had been awfully proud of
him.” It was Pegeen who had said that.
Who could tell? One needn’t sentimentalize, but one might as
well give a man the benefit of the doubt. That was neighboring.
The nurse from Albany came and ate up the case, according to
prophecy, but in a few days she went away to meet direr needs, and
then Pegeen’s turn came. She was in her element, and Ezra, a limp
edition of his former self, showed a flattering satisfaction in the
change from Miss Kirby’s ministrations to Peggy’s. Surliness was as
natural to him as breathing and he was no angel patient; but it was
quite useless to be surly with Peg. She ignored it, and went her
cheerful, tolerant way, coddling, coaxing, encouraging, tyrannizing,
amusing, unmoved by stubbornness or rudeness or anger or
ingratitude, obeying the doctor’s orders and, where the orders
ended, “seeing to” Ezra according to her own ideas of the way the
thing should be done.
Archibald, and Miss Moran, and Mrs. Benderby, stayed with her in
turn, but the case was hers, and Dr. Fullerton always addressed her
as “Nurse O’Neill,” to her profound satisfaction.
Archibald missed her miserably at the shack. Mrs. Benderby was
looking after him. She had called the doctor in as he drove by one
evening during the first week of Ezra’s illness; and after an
examination he had told her kindly but frankly that her days for hard
work were over.
“You may live for many years,” he said; “live comfortably, too, but
no more washing and ironing and scrubbing, Mrs. Benderby. We’ll
have to find something easier for you to do.”
He spoke as though finding it would be the simplest matter
imaginable and indeed it proved so; for Archibald, temporarily bereft
of Peggy and robbed of self-reliance through many weeks of being
“seen to” by that young person, was desperately in need of feminine
ministrations.
“Just the thing for you,” the doctor said heartily, as he told Mrs.
Benderby of Archibald’s forlorn plight “When Peg gets through with
Ezra we’ll have something else for you.” So there were good meals
and cleanliness at the shack, but oh, the loneliness of the place! Mrs.
Benderby was devoted, she was kind, but she had her limitations.
Pegeen, so it seemed to Archibald as he sighed for her, had none.
He was lonely without her, infernally lonely, and he told her so. She
was distressed about it, but Ezra needed her most and that settled
the matter so far as she was concerned.
“I’m homesick. I’m most crazy to go home,” she confessed, “but I
wouldn’t for anything. Sometimes I think he most likes me; but he’s
dreadfully ashamed of it. He’s dreadfully ashamed of any nice feeling
he has. Isn’t that funny? After he says anything pleasant, he swears
right off quick for fear you’ll think he meant it. I do wish I could get
him used to being nice so it wouldn’t hurt him the way it does.”
Even Pegeen could not quite achieve that—Ezra progressed to
the point of being nice occasionally but it always hurt him, and only
to Peggy did he even make the concession of being very
intermittently “nice.”
For Archibald and the doctor and all the rest he wore as lowering
a face and as ungracious a manner as though they had been cruelly
abusing him instead of saving his life and paying his expenses.
Archibald found the thing rather discouraging, but Dr. Fullerton
laughed over it unconcernedly.
“Great Scott, man,” he said, when they talked of it one day after
a visit to the rapidly convalescing invalid, “I don’t pull my patients
through because I expect gratitude. I do it because it’s playing the
game. That’s the only satisfaction that amounts to anything. Pick out
a white man’s game and play it for all there is in you. Then life’s
worth living.”

X
The day came when Ezra was well enough to shift for himself
and he gave every one—including Pegeen—to understand that he
was glad to be rid of intruders.
“It’ll seem mighty good to get back to living as I please,” he said,
as Peg, calmly autocratic to the last, gave him a dose of medicine
before joining the doctor who was waiting to drive her home.
“I’ll bet it doesn’t.” She was amiable but positive. “You’ll hate it
and I’m sorry you’ve got to do it, but I think maybe you’ll take better
care of yourself than you did. Don’t forget your medicine after
meals. If you get into any trouble I’ll come over and see to you.”
Ezra grunted derision, but she held out her hand and smiled up
at him so whole-heartedly that he was surprised into an answering
smile.
“You’re a queer one,” he said, “but you’re better than most.” It
was grudging, inadequate, but coming from Ezra it was glowing
tribute, and Peggy went out to the car in high spirits.
“I’m going to miss Ezra,” she said as the doctor tucked her in. “Of
course he isn’t like Mr. Archibald, but I’ve got real fond of him.”
“Holy Smoke!” commented Dr. Fullerton.
“I have,” she insisted, “and I’m sure now that he likes me. He
said I was better than most. That’s a lot for Ezra to say.”
“It’s impassioned eulogy,” said the doctor,—“but, Peg, speaking in
cold blood, as doctor to nurse and without any of Ezra’s overflowing
sentiment, I’ll admit that you are better than most. You really ought
to be trained for a nurse, Peg.”
The small girl’s face flushed with happiness at the praise.
“It’d be lovely,” she said, “but I can’t, because I’m going to be
married and I guess my own children will keep me pretty busy. I do
hope they’ll have measles and whooping cough and all those things
early. It’s so much better, isn’t it? And it’ll take a lot of time for eight
of them to have everything.”
“That’s a fact. It will,” agreed the doctor. “You’re counting on
eight?”
She nodded.
“Yes; I guess that’s enough unless you have perfect stacks of
money. I want them all to go to school. School’s so lovely. I’d have
liked awfully to go more, but there was always somebody to see to.”
Dr. Fullerton gave her arm an affectionate little squeeze.
“You know more than any of the rest of us as it is, Peg. Schooling
you would have been ‘gilding refined gold and painting the lily.’ I’ll
tell you what I’ll do. I’ll undertake to see all eight of those children
through whooping cough and measles and any blamed thing they
choose to have and I won’t charge you a cent for it.”
Pegeen looked immeasurably relieved.
“That’ll be perfectly splendid,” she said happily. “Doctor’s bills do
make lots of trouble.”
“They trouble the doctors.”
Dr. Fullerton grinned ruefully as he admitted it. A very large
percentage of his patients showed absolutely no interest in his bills
when he sent them.
Archibald and Wiggles were waiting for Pegeen at the meadow
bars and each welcomed her after his own fashion. Wiggles was the
more exuberant of the two. Only by sheer force was he kept from
meeting a sudden and violent death in his wild effort to climb into
the car before it stopped; and when the small girl finally stood by
the roadside, he gave an exhibition of hysterical affection ill befitting
one of his stern sex. Archibald merely took his pipe from his mouth
and came forward to lift Peg from the car, with a quiet, “Well, here
you are, Nurse O’Neill,” but the satisfaction in his face was good to
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