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Title: The Story of a Doctor's Telephone--Told by His Wife
Author: Ellen M. Firebaugh
Release Date: February 3, 2012 [EBook #38752]
Language: English
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THE STORY OF A DOCTOR'S
TELEPHONE--TOLD
BY HIS WIFE
BY
ELLEN M. FIREBAUGH
Author of "The Physician's Wife"
BOSTON, MASS.:
THE ROXBURGH PUBLISHING COMPANY
(Incorporated)
Copyrighted, 1912
By Ellen M. Firebaugh
All rights reserved
TO MY HUSBAND
TO THE READER.
The telephone has revolutionized the doctor's life.
In the old days when a horse's galloping hoofs were heard people looked
out of their windows and wondered if that wasn't someone after a doctor!
The steed that Franklin harnessed bears the message now, and comments
and curiosity are stilled. In the old days thunderous knocks came often
to the doctor's door at night; they are never heard now, or so rarely as
to need no mention. Neighbors have been awakened by these importunate
raps: they sleep on undisturbed now.
The doctor's household enjoys nothing of this sweet immunity. A
disturbing factor is within it that makes the thunderous knocks of old
pale into insignificance.
When the telephone first came into the town where our doctor lived he
had one put in his office of course, for if anyone in the world needs a
'phone it is the doctor and the people who want him. By and by he
bethought him that since his office was several blocks from his
residence he had better put one in there, too, because of calls that
come in the night. So it was promptly installed. The doctor and his wife
found their sleep disturbed far oftener than before. People will not
dress and go out into the night to the doctor's house unless it is
necessary. But it is an easy thing to step to the 'phone and call him
from his sleep to answer questions--often needless--and when several
people do the same thing in the same night, as frequently happens, it is
not hard to see what the effect may be.
One day the doctor had an idea! He would connect the two 'phones. It
would be a handy thing for Mary to be able to talk to him about the
numberless little things that come up in a household without the trouble
of ringing central every time, and it would be a handy thing for him,
too. When he had to leave the office he could just 'phone Mary and she
could keep an ear on the 'phone till he got back.
About this time another telephone system was established in the
town--the Farmers'. Now a doctor's clientele includes many farmers, so
he put one of the new 'phones into his office. By and by he reflected
that farmers are apt to need to consult a physician at night--he must
put in a Farmers' 'phone at home, too. And he did. Then he connected it
with the office.
When the first 'phone went up Mary soon accustomed herself to its
call--three rings. When her husband connected it with the office the
rings were multiplied by three. One ring meant someone at the office
calling central. Two rings meant someone calling the office. Three rings
meant someone calling the residence, as before. Mary found the three
calls confusing. When the Farmers' 'phone was installed and the same
order of rings set up, she found the original ring multiplied by six.
This was confusion worse confounded. To be sure the bell on the Farmers'
had a somewhat hoarser sound than that on the Citizens' 'phone, but
Mary's ear was the only one in the household that could tell the
difference with certainty. The clock in the same room struck the half
hours which did not tend to simplify matters. When a new door-bell was
put on the front door Mary found she had eight different rings to
contend with. But it is the bells of the Telephone with which we are
concerned and something of their story will unfold as we proceed.
When the doctor was at home and the 'phone would ring he would start
toward the adjoining room where the two hung and stop at the first.
Mary would call "Farmers'!" and he would move on to the next. Perhaps at
the same instant the tall boy of the household whose ear was no more
accurate than that of his father would shout "Citizens'!" and the doctor
would stop between the two.
"_Farmers'!_" the wife would call a second time, with accrued emphasis.
Then she would laugh heartily and declare:
"Any one coming in might think this a sort of forum where orations were
being delivered," and sometimes she would go on and declaim:
"Friends, Romans, countrymen, lend me your ears--my husband has borrowed
mine."
So the telephone in the doctor's house--so great a necessity that we
cannot conceive of life without it, so great a blessing that we are
hourly grateful for it, is yet a very great tyrant whose dominion is
absolute.
I had a pleasing picture in my mind in the writing of this chronicle, of
sitting serene and undisturbed in a cosy den upstairs, with all the
doors between me and the 'phone shut tight where no sound might intrude.
In vain. Without climbing to the attic I could not get so far away that
the tintinnabulation that so mercilessly wells from those bells, bells,
bells did not penetrate.
I hope my readers have not got so far away from their Poe as to imagine
that ringing sentence to be mine. And I wonder if a still greater glory
might not crown his brow if there had been telephone bells to celebrate
in Poe's day.
So I gave up the pleasant dream, abandoned the cosy den and came down
stairs to the dining room where I can scatter my manuscript about on the
big table, and look the tyrants in the face and answer the queries that
arise, and can sandwich in a good many little odd jobs besides.
Through a doctor's telephone how many glimpses of human nature and how
many peeps into the great Story of Life have been mine; and if, while
the reader is peeping too, the scene suddenly closes, why that is the
way of telephones and not the fault of the writer.
And knowing how restful a thing it has been to me to get away from the
ringing of the bell at times, I have devised a rest for the reader also
and have sent him with the doctor and his wife on an occasional country
drive where no telephone intrudes.
E. M. F.
Robinson, Ill.
The Story of a Doctor's Telephone
CHAPTER I.
The hands of the clock were climbing around toward eleven and the doctor
had not returned. Mary, a drowsiness beginning to steal over her, looked
up with a yawn. Then she fell into a soliloquy:
To bed, or not to bed--that is the question:
Whether 'tis wiser in the wife to wait for a belated spouse,
Or to wrap the drapery of her couch about her
And lie down to pleasant dreams?
To dream! perchance to sleep!
And by that sleep to end the headache
And the thousand other ills that flesh is heir to,
The restoration of a wilted frame,--
Wilted by loss of sleep on previous nights--
A consummation devoutly to be wished.
To dream! perchance to sleep!--aye, there's the rub;
For in that somnolence what peals may come
Must give her pause. There is the telephone
That makes calamity of her repose.
Her spouse may not have come to answer it,
Which means that she, his wife, must issue forth
All dazed and breathless from delicious sleep,
And knock her knees on intervening chairs,
And bump her head on a half open door,
And get there finally all out of breath,
And take the receiver down and say: "Hello?"
The old, old question: "Is the doctor there?"
Comes clearly now to her awakened ear.
Then, tentatively, she must make reply:
"The doctor was called out an hour ago,
But I expect him now at any time."
Good patrons should be held and not escape
To other doctors that may lie in wait;
For in this voice so brusque and straight and clear
She recognizes an old friend and true,
Whose purse is ever ready to make good,
And she hath need of many, many things.
But then, again, the message of the 'phone
May be that of some stricken little child
Whose mother's voice trembles with love and fear.
Then must the listener earnestly advise:
"Don't wait for him! Get someone else to-night."
Perchance again the message may be that
Of colics dire and death so imminent
That she who listens, tho' with 'customed ear,
Shrinks back dismayed and knows not what to say,
Lacking the knowledge and profanity
Of him who, were he there, would settle quick
This much ado about much nothingness.
And so these anticipatory peals
Reverberate through fancy as she sits,
And make her rather choose to bear the ills
She has than fly to others she may meet;
To wait a little longer for her spouse,
That, when at last she does retire to rest,
She may be somewhat surer of her sleep.
And so she sits there waiting for the step
And the accompanying clearing of the throat
Which she would know were she in Zanzibar.
And by-and-by he comes and fate is kind
And lets them slumber till the early dawn.
CHAPTER II.
Ten P.M. The 'phone is ringing and the sleepy doctor gets out of bed and
goes to answer it.
"Hello."
No response.
"Hello!"
Silence.
"Hello!!"
"Is this Doctor Blank?"
"Yes."
"I want you to come out to my house--my wife's sick."
"Who is it?"
"Jim Warner. Come just as--"
A click in the receiver.
The doctor waits a minute. Then he says "Hello." No answer. He waits
another minute. "_Hell-o!!_"
Silence. "Damn that girl--she's cut us off." He hangs up the receiver
and rings the bell sharply. He takes it down and hears a voice say
leisurely, "D'ye get them?"
"Yes! What in h-ll did you cut us off for?"
"Wait a minute--I'll ring 'em again," says the voice, hasty and
obliging, so potent a thing is a man's unveiled wrath. She rings 'em
again. Soon the same voice says, "Are you there yet, Doctor?"
"Yes, _now_ what is it!"
The voice proceeds and the doctor listens putting in an occasional "Yes"
or "No." Then he says, "All right--I'll be out there in a little bit."
He hangs up the receiver and his wife falls asleep again. The doctor
dresses and goes out. The house is in darkness. All is still. In about
five minutes Mary is suddenly, sharply awake. A slight noise in the
adjoining room! She listens with accelerated heart-beats. The doctor has
failed to put on the night latch. Some thief has been lying in wait
watching for his opportunity, and now he has entered. What can she do.
Muffled footsteps! she pulls the sheet over her head, her heart beating
to suffocation. The footsteps grope their way toward her room! Great
Heaven! A hand fumbles at the door knob. She shrieks aloud.
"What on earth is the matter!"
O, brusque and blessed is that voice!
"John, you have nearly scared me to death," she says, sitting up in bed,
half laughing and half crying. "But I heard you tell that man you were
coming out there."
"Yes. I told him I was."
"Well, why didn't you go?"
"I _did_ go."
"You don't mean to tell me you have been a mile and back in five
minutes."
The doctor flashed on the light and looked at his watch,--"Just an hour
since I left home," he said. Mary gasped. "Well, it only proves how
soundly I can sleep when I get a chance," she said.
* * * * *
Ting-a-ling-ling-ling. Ting-a-ling-ling-ling.
It is the office ring but Mary hurries at once to answer it.
"Is this Dr. Blank's office?"
"This is Mrs. Blank. But the doctor telephoned me about twenty minutes
ago that he would be out for half an hour. Call him again in ten or
fifteen minutes and I think you will find him."
In about fifteen minutes the call is repeated. Mary would feel better
satisfied to know that the doctor received the message so she goes to
the 'phone and listens. Silence. She waits a minute. Shall she speak?
She hesitates. Struggle as she will against the feeling, she can't quite
overcome it--it seems like "butting in." But that long silence with the
listening ear at the other end of it is too much for her. Very
pleasantly, almost apologetically she asks, "What is it?"
"The doctor hasn't come yet?" says a plainly disappointed voice.
"No--not yet. There are often unexpected things to delay him--if you
will give me your number or your name I will have him call _you_."
"No, I'll just wait and call him again." The inflection says plainly, "I
don't care to admit the doctor's wife into my confidences."
"Very well. I am sure it can't be long now till he returns."
Mary goes back to her chair and ponders a little. Of what avail to
multiply words. No use to tell the woman 'phoning that she was willing
to take the waiting and the watching, the seeing that the doctor
received the message upon herself rather than that the other should be
again troubled by it. No use to let her gently understand that she
doesn't care for any confidences which belong only to her husband, but
Fate has placed her in a position where she has oftentimes to seem
unduly interested. That these messages which are only occasional with
the one calling are constant with her and that she is only mindful of
them when she must be.
* * * * *
"Watch the 'phone." How thoroughly instilled into Mary's consciousness
that admonition was! She did not heed the office ring when it came, but
if it came a second time she always went to explain that the doctor had
just stepped over to the drug store probably and would be back in a very
few minutes. Often, as she stood explaining, the doctor himself would
break into the conversation, having been in another room when the first
call came, and getting there a little tardily for the second. But
occasions sometimes arose which made Mary feel very thankful that she
had been at the 'phone. One winter morning as she stood explaining to
some woman that the doctor would be in in a few minutes, her husband's
"Hello" was heard.
"There he is now," she said. Usually after this announcement she would
hang up the receiver and go about her work. Today a friendly interest in
this pleasant voice kept it in her hand a moment. Mary would not have
admitted idle curiosity, and perhaps she had as little of it as falls to
the lot of women, but sometimes she lingered a moment for the message,
to know if the doctor was to be called away, so that she might make her
plans for dinner accordingly. The pleasant voice spoke again, "This is
Dr. Blank, is it?"
"Yes."
"We want you to come out to Henry Ogden's."
"That's about five miles out, isn't it. Who's sick out there?"
"Mrs. Ogden."
"What's the matter?"
No reply.
"How long has she been sick?"
"She began complaining last night."
"All right--I'll be out some time today."
"Come right away, please, if you can."
This is an old, old plea. The doctor is thoroughly inured to it. He
would have to be twenty men instead of one to respond to it at all
times. He answers cheerfully, "All right," and Mary takes alarm. That
tone means sometime in the next few hours. She feels sure he ought to go
_now_. Somebody else can wait better than this patient. There was a kind
of hesitancy in that voice that Mary had heard before. A woman's
intuitions are much safer guides than a man's slow reasoning. She must
speak to John. She rings the office.
"Hello."
"Say, John," she says in a low voice, "I came to the 'phone thinking you
were out and heard that message. I think you ought to go out there right
_away_."
"Well, I'm going after a little."
"But I don't think you ought to wait. I'm sure it's--_you_ know."
"Well,--maybe I had better go right out."
"I wish you would. I know they'll be looking for you every minute."
A few minutes later Mary saw him drive past and was glad. Half an hour
later the office ring sounded. She did not wait for the second peal.
True, John had not said, "Watch the 'phone," today, but that was
understood. Occasionally he got an old man who lived next door to the
office to come in and stay during his absence. Possibly he might have
done so today. But even if he were there the telephone and its ways were
a dark mystery to him and besides, his deafness made him of little use
in that direction.
Mary took down the receiver and put it to her ear. A lady's voice was
asking, "Who _is_ this?"
Mary knew from her inflection that she had asked something before and
was not satisfied with the reply.
"_This_ is Dr. Blank's office?" announced the old man in a sort of
interrogative.
"Well, where is the _doctor_?"
"The doctor," said the old man meditatively, as if wondering that
anybody should be calling for him--"the doctor--you mean Dr. Blank, I
reckon?"
"I certainly do."
"Good Heavens," thought Mary, "why _don't_ he go on!"
"Why, he's out."
"Where _is_ he?"
"He went to the country."
Mary shut her lips tight.
"_Well_, when will he be back?"
"He 'lowed he'd be back in about an hour or so."
"How long has he been _gone_? Maybe I'll get some information after a
while."
Mary longed to speak. Why hadn't she done so at first. If she thrust
herself in now it would make her out an eavesdropper. But this was
unbearable. She opened her mouth to speak when the old man answered.
"He's been gone over an hour now, I reckon."
"Then he'll soon be back. Will you be there when he comes?"
"Yes ma'am."
"Then tell him to come up to Mrs. Dorlan's."
"To Mrs. Who's?"
"Mrs. _Dorlan's_."
"I didn't ketch the name."
"_Mrs. Dorlan's_, on Brownson street."
"Mrs. Torren's?"
"MISS-ES--DOR-LAN'S!" shouted the voice.
Mary sighed fiercely and clinched her teeth unconsciously. "I _will_
speak," she thought, when the old voice ventured doubtingly,
"Mrs. Dorlan's?"
"That's it. Mrs. Dorlan's on Brownson street, will you remember it?"
"Mrs. Dorlan's, on Brownson street."
"That's right. Please tell him just as soon as he comes to come right
up."
"All right--I'll tell him."
"Poor old fellow!" said Mary as she turned from the 'phone, "but I don't
want to go through any more ordeals like that. It was a good deal harder
for me than for the other woman."
The doctor came down late to dinner. "You got Mrs. Dorlan's message did
you?"
"Yes, I'll go up there right after dinner." He looked at his wife with
peculiar admiration.
"How did you know what was wanted with me out in the country?" he asked.
With a little pardonable pride she replied: "Oh, I just felt it. Women
have ways of understanding each other that men never attain to. Is it a
boy or a girl added to the world today?"
"Neither," said the doctor placidly, helping himself to a roll.
Chagrin overspread her face. "Well," she said with an embarrassed smile,
"I erred on mercy's side, and it _might_ have happened in just that way,
John, and you know it."
The doctor laughed. "There was mighty little the matter out there--they
didn't need a doctor."
"Are they good pay?"
"Good as old wheat."
"Then there are compensations."
* * * * *
Some hours later when the 'phone rang, Mary went to explain that the
doctor had 'phoned her he would be out about twenty minutes. But she
found no chance to speak. A spirited dialogue was taking place between a
young man and a maid:
"Where _are_ you, Jack?"
"I'm right here."
"Smarty! Where _are_ you!"
"In Dr. Blank's office."
"What are you there for?"
"I'm waiting for the doctor and to while away the time thought I'd call
you up."
Then it was his ring that Mary had answered. "I ought to hang this
receiver right up," thought she, but instead she held it, her face
beaming with a sympathetic smile.
"Are you feeling better today, Dolly?"
"Yes, I'm better."
"Able to go to the show then, tonight?"
"_Yes_, I'm able to go."
Here a thin small voice put in, "No, you're not able! You're not going."
"Mamma says,--" began a pouting voice.
"I heard what she said," said Jack, laughing. "Have you been up all
day?"
"Most of the day."
"Can you eat anything?"
"I ate an egg, some toast and some fruit for dinner."
"That's fine. I'll bring you a box of candy then pretty soon--I'm coming
down in a little bit."
"That will be lovely."
"Which, the candy or the coming down?"
"The candy, goose, of course." A laugh at both ends of the wire.
Then Jack's voice. "Well, here comes the doctor. I've got to have my
neck amputated now. Goodbye."
"Good-bye."
"All's fair in love and war," said Mary, "and it's plain to see what
this is." Then she hung up the receiver without a qualm.
* * * * *
There were other times when the doctor's wife was glad she had gone to
the 'phone, as in this instance.
She had taken down the receiver when a man's voice said, "The doctor
just stepped out for a few minutes. If you will tell me your name,
madam, I'll have him call you when he comes in."
Disinterested courtesy spoke in his voice, but Mary was not in the least
surprised to hear the curt reply, "It won't be necessary. I'll call
_him_ when he comes."
"I dare say that gentleman, whoever he may be, is wondering what he has
done," thought Mary.
But it was not altogether unpleasant to her to hear somebody else
squelched, too!
* * * * *
There came a day when the doctor's wife rebelled. When her husband came
home and ate his supper hastily and then rose to depart, she said,
"You'd better wait at home a few minutes, John."
"Why?" He put the question brusquely, his hat in his hand.
"Because I think someone will ring here for you in a minute or two. Some
man rang the office twice so I went to the 'phone to explain that you
must be on your way to supper and he could find you here."
"Who was it?"
"I do not know."
"Thunder! Why didn't you find out?"
Mary looked straight at her husband. "How many times have I told you,
John, that many people decline to give their names or their messages to
any one but you. I think I should feel that way about it myself. For a
long time I have dutifully done your bidding in the matter, but now I
vow I will not trample my pride under my feet any longer--especially
when it is all in vain. I will watch the 'phone as faithfully as in the
past, but I will not ask for any name or any message. They will be given
voluntarily if at all."
"All right, Mary," said the doctor, gently, seeing that she was quite
serious.
"I do not mean to say that most of the people who 'phone are grouchy and
disagreeable--far from it. Indeed the majority are pleasant and
courteous. But it is those who are not who have routed me, and made me
vow my vow. Don't ask me to break it, John, for I will not."
And having delivered this declaration, Mary felt almost as free and
independent as in ante-telephone days.
The doctor had seated himself and leaning forward was swinging his hat
restlessly between his knees. He waited five minutes.
"I'll have to get back to the office," he exclaimed, starting up. "I'm
expecting a man to pay me some money. Waiting for the 'phone to ring is
like watching for the pot to boil."
When he had been gone a minute or two, the ring came. With a new step
Mary advanced to it.
"Has the doctor got there yet?" the voice had lost none of its grouch.
"He has. And he waited for your message which did not come. He could not
wait longer. He has just gone to the office. If you will 'phone him
there in two or three minutes, instead of waiting till he is called out
again, you will find him."
"Thank you, Mrs. Blank." The man was surprised into courtesy.
The clear-cut, distinct sentences were very different from the
faltering, apologetic ones, when she had asked for his name or his
message twenty minutes before.
Mary's receiver clicked with no uncertain sound and a smile illumined
her face.
* * * * *
One day when the snow was flying and the wind was blowing a gale the
doctor came hurrying in. "Where is the soapstone?" he asked, with small
amenity. His wife flew to get it and laid it on the hearth very close to
the coals. "Oh dear! How terrible to go out in such a storm. Do you
_have_ to?" she asked.
"I certainly do. Do you think I'd choose a day like this for a pleasure
trip?"
"Aren't you glad you got that galloway?" she asked, hurrying to bring
the big, hairy garment from its hook in the closet. She helped her
husband into it, turned the broad collar up--then, when the soapstone
was hot, she wrapped it up and gave it to him. "This ought to keep your
feet from freezing," she said. The doctor took it, hurried out to the
buggy, pulled the robes up around him and was gone.
"Eight miles in this blizzard!" thought Mary shivering, "and eight miles
back--sixteen miles. It will take most of the day."
Two hours after the doctor had gone the telephone rang.
"Is Dr. Blank there?"
"No, he is in the country, about eight miles southwest."
"This is Drayton. We want him at John Small's as soon as possible. How
soon do you think he will be back?"
"Not for several hours, I am afraid."
"Well, will you send him down as soon as he comes? We want him _bad_."
Mary assured him she would do so. "Poor John," she thought as she put up
the receiver.
In a few minutes she went hurriedly back. When she had called central,
she said, "I am very anxious to get Dr. Blank, central. He is eight
miles southwest of here--at the home of Thomas Calhoun. Is there a
'phone there?" Silence for a few seconds then a voice, "No, there is no
'phone at Thomas Calhoun's."
Disappointed, Mary stood irresolute, thinking. Then she asked,
"Is there a 'phone at Mr. William Huntley's?"
"Yes, William Huntley has a 'phone."
"Thank you. Please call that house for me."
In a minute a man's voice said, "Hello."
"Is this Mr. Huntley?"
"Yes."
"Mr. Huntley, this is Mrs. Blank. You live not far from Thomas
Calhoun's, do you not?"
"About half a mile."
"Dr. Blank is there, or will be very soon, and there is an urgent call
for him to go on to Drayton. I want to save him the long drive home
first. I find there is no 'phone at Mr. Calhoun's so I have called you
hoping you might be able to help me out. Perhaps someone of your family
will be going down that way and will stop in."
"I'll go, myself."
"It's too bad to ask any one to go out on a day like this--"
"That's all right, Mrs. Blank. Doc's been pretty clever to me."
"Tell him, please, to go to John Small's at Drayton. I am very deeply
obliged to you for your kindness, Mr. Huntley," she said, hanging the
receiver in its place.
"Eight miles back home, six miles from here to Drayton, six miles
back--twenty miles in all. Four miles from Calhoun's to Drayton, six
miles from Drayton home--ten miles saved on a blizzardy day," she
thought in the thankfulness of her heart.
A few minutes later she was again at the 'phone. "Please give me John
Small's at Drayton." When the voice came she said, "I wanted to tell you
that the doctor will be there perhaps in about an hour now. I got your
message to him so that he will go directly to your house."
"I'm mighty glad to know it. Thank you, Mrs. Blank, for finding him and
for letting us know."
A terrible drive saved and some anxious hearts relieved. That dear
'phone! How thankful she was for it and for the country drives she had
taken with her husband which had made her familiar with the homes and
names of many farmers. Otherwise she could not have located her husband
this morning. One day like this covered a multitude of tyrannies from
the little instrument on the wall.
* * * * *
It was about half past seven. The doctor had thought it probable that he
could get off early this evening and then he and Mary and the boys would
have a game of whist. He had been called in consultation to W., a little
town in an adjoining county, but he would be home in a little bit--in
just ten minutes the train would be due.
"O, there goes that 'phone," said the small boy wrathfully. "Now, I
s'pose papa can't get here!"
His mother was already there with the receiver at her ear.
"This is Dr. Blank's residence."
"No, but he will be here in fifteen or twenty minutes."
"To Drayton?"
"Very well. I will give him your message as soon as he gets home. I'm
afraid that ends the game for tonight, boys," putting the receiver up.
"Why, does papa have to go away?"
"Yes, he has to drive six miles."
"Gee-mi-nee--this dark night in the mud!"
Here a thought flashed into Mary's mind--Drayton was on the same
railroad on which the doctor was rapidly nearing home--the next station
beyond. She flew to the telephone and rang with nervous haste.
"Hello."
"Is this the Big Four?"
"Yes."
"This is Mrs. Blank. Dr. Blank is on the train which is due now. He is
wanted at Drayton. When he gets off, will you please tell him?"
"To go on to Drayton?"
"Yes, to Alfred Walton's."
"All right. I'll watch for him and see that he gets aboard again."
"Thank you very much."
The train whistled. "Just in time," said Mary.
"But how'll papa get back?" asked the smaller boy.
"He's got a tie-ticket," said his brother.
"Yes, papa would rather walk back on the railroad than drive both ways
through this deep mud," said their mother. "I have heard him say so."
Another ring.
"Is the doctor there?"
"He has just gone on the train to Drayton."
"How soon will he be back?"
"In an hour and a half, I should think."
Mary heard the 'phoner say in an aside, "He won't be back for an hour
and a half. Do you want to wait that long?"
Another voice replied, "Yes, I'll wait. Tell 'em to tell him to come
just as quick as he gets back, though."
This message was transmitted.
"And where is he to go?"
"To Henry Smith's, down by the Big Four depot."
A few minutes later Mary had another idea. She went to the 'phone and
asked central to give her Drayton, Mr. Walton's house.
In a minute a voice said, "What is it?" It was restful to Mary to have
the usual opening varied. Perhaps eight out of ten began with,
"Hello!" The other two began, "Yes," "Well," "What is it?" and very
rarely, "Good morning," or "Good evening."
"Is this the home of Mr. Walton at Drayton?"
"Yes."
"Dr. Blank is there just now, isn't he?"
"Yes, but he's just going away."
"Will you please ask him to come to the 'phone?"
In a minute her husband's voice was heard asking what was wanted.
"I want to save you a long walk when you get home, John. You're wanted
at Henry Smith's down by the Big Four depot."
"All right. I'll go in to see him when I get there. Much obliged."
"A mile walk saved there," mused the doctor's wife, as she joined the
two boys, mildly grumbling because they couldn't have their game, and
never could have it just when they wanted it. But a few chapters from
Ivanhoe read to them by their mother made all serene again.
* * * * *
The Citizens' 'phone was ringing persistently. The doctor's wife had
been upstairs and could not get to it in less than no time! But she got
there.
"Do you know where Dr. Blank is?" the words hurled themselves against
her ear.
"I don't know just at this minute--but he's here in town. I'm sure of
that."
"Why don't he _come_ then!" The sentence came as from a catapult.
"I don't know anything about it. Where was he to go?"
A scornful "_Huh!_" came over the wire--"I guess you forgot to tell
'im."
"I have not been asked to tell him anything this morning."
There was heated silence for an instant, then a voice big with wrath:
"You told me not fifteen minutes ago that you would send him right
down."
"You are mistaken," said Mary gently but firmly. "This is the first time
I have been at the 'phone this morning."
"Well, what do you think of that!" This was addressed to someone at the
other end of the line, but it came clearly to Mary's ear and its
intonation said volumes.
"You're the very identical woman that told me when I 'phoned awhile ago
that you'd send him right down. It's the very same voice."
"There is a mistake somewhere," reiterated Mary, patiently, "but I'll
send the doctor as soon as he gets in if you will give me your name."
"I'll tell ye agin, then, that he's to come to Lige Thornton's."
"Very well. I'll send him," and Mary left the 'phone much mystified.
"She was in dead earnest--and so was I. I can't understand it." Glancing
out of the window she saw her tall, young daughter coming up the walk.
The solution came with lightning quickness--strange she didn't think of
that, Gertrude had answered. She remembered now that others had thought
their voices very much alike, especially over the 'phone. "If the woman
had not talked in such a cyclonic way I would have thought of it," she
reflected.
When the young girl entered the room her mother said, "Gertrude, you
answered the 'phone awhile ago, didn't you?"
"About twenty minutes ago. Some woman was so anxious for father to come
right away that I just ran down to the office to see that he _went_."
"That was very thoughtful of you, dear, but it's little credit we're
getting for it."
She related the dialogue that had just taken place and mother and
daughter laughed in sympathy.
"Why, Mamma, we couldn't forget if we wanted to. That telephone is an
Old Man of the Sea to both of us--is now and ever shall be, world
without end."
"But did you find your father at the office?"
"Yes, and waited till he fixed up some medicine for two patients already
waiting, then shooed him out before some more came in. I wanted to get
it off _my_ mind."
"I'm glad he is on his way. Now stay within hearing of the 'phone,
dearie, till I finish my work up-stairs."
"All right, Mamma, I'm going to make a cake now, but I can hear the
'phone plainly from the kitchen."
It wasn't long till a ring was heard. Gertrude dusted the flour from her
hands and started. "Which 'phone was it?" she asked the maid.
"I think it was the Farmers'," said Mollie, hesitating.
So to the Farmers' 'phone went Gertrude.
"Hello."
No answer.
"Hello."
Silence.
She clapped the receiver up and hurried to the Citizens' 'phone.
"Hello."
"Is this Dr. Blank's?"
"Yes."
"Is he there?"
"No, he was called--" Here a loud ring from the other 'phone sounded.
"He was called down to--" said Gertrude rapidly, then paused, unable to
think of the name at the instant.
"If you will tell me where he went, I'll just 'phone down there for
him," said the voice.
A second peal from the other 'phone.
"_Yes, yes!_" said Gertrude impatiently. "O, I didn't mean that for
you," she hurried apologetically. "The other 'phone is calling, and I'm
so confused I can't think. Will you excuse me just an instant till I see
what is wanted?"
"Certainly."
She flew to the Farmers' 'phone.
"Is this Dr. Blank's?"
"Yes."
"Good while a-answerin'," grumbled a voice.
"I did answer but no one answered _me_."
"Where's the doctor?"
"He's down in the east part of town--will be back in a little bit."
"Well, when he comes tell him--just hold the 'phone a minute, will you,
till I speak to my wife."
"All right." But she put the receiver swiftly up and rushed back to the
waiting man. She could answer him and get back by the time the other was
ready for her.
"Hello, still there?"
"Yes."
"I've thought of the name--father went to Elijah Thornton's."
"Thornton's--let's see--have you a telephone directory handy--could you
give me their number?"
"Wait a minute, I'll see." She raced through the pages,--"yes, here it
is."
A violent peal from the Farmers' 'phone. "He'll think I'm still hunting
for the number," she thought, letting the receiver hang and rushing to
the other 'phone.
"Hello."
"Thought you was a-goin' to hold the 'phone. I've had a turrible time
gittin' any answer."
"I've had a turrible time, too," thought poor Gertrude.
"Tell the doctor to call me up," and he gave his name and his number.
"All right, I'll tell him." She clapped the receiver up lest there might
be more to follow and sped back.
"Here it is," she announced calmly, "Elijah Thornton, number 101."
"Thank you, I'm afraid I've put you to a good deal of trouble."
"Not at all."
As she went back to her cake she said to herself, "Two telephones
ringing at once can certainly make things interesting."
* * * * *
One day in mid winter Mary sat half dreaming before the glowing coals.
Snow had fallen all through the previous night and today there had been
good coasting for the boys and girls.
Ting-a-ling-ling-ling. Ting-a-ling-ling-ling. Ting-a-ling-ling-ling.
She started up and went to answer it.
"Is this you, Mary?"
"Yes."
"I'll be out of the office about twenty minutes."
"Very well."
Sometimes Mary wished her husband would be a little more explicit. She
had a vague sort of feeling that central, or whoever should chance to
hear him make this announcement to her so often, might think she
requested or perhaps demanded it; might think she wanted to know every
place her husband went.
In about half an hour the 'phone rang again, two rings.
John ought to be back. Should she take it for granted? It would be safer
to put the receiver to her ear and listen for her husband's voice.
"Hello."
"Hello."
"Is this you Dr. Blank?"
"Looks like it."
"We want ye to come down to our house right away."
"Who is this?"
"W'y, this is Mrs. Peters."
"Mrs. Peters? Oh yes," said the doctor, recognizing the voice now.
"What's the matter down there, grandmother?"
"W'y--my little grandson, Johnny, was slidin' down hill on a board and
got a splinter in his setter."
"He did, eh?"
"Yes, he did, and a big one, too."
"Well, I'll be down there right away. Have some boiled water."
Mary turned away from the telephone that it might not register her low
laughter as she put the receiver in its place. The next instant she took
it down again with twinkling eyes and listened. Yes, the voices were
silent, it would be safe. She rang two rings.
"Hello," said her husband's voice.
"John," said Mary, almost in a whisper, "for English free and unadorned,
commend me to a little boy's grandmother!"
Two laughs met over the wire, then two receivers clicked.
* * * * *
One day Mary came in from a walk and noticed at once, a vacant place on
the wall where the Farmers' 'phone had hung. She had heard rumors of a
merger of the two systems and had fervently hoped that they might merge
soon and forever.
"Look! Mamma," said Gertrude, pointing to the wall.
"Oh frabjous day! Callooh! Callay!
One telephone is taken away!"
she chortled in her joy.
(The small boy of the household had been reading "Alice" and
consequently declaiming the Jabberwock from morning till night, till its
weird strains had become fixed in the various minds of the household and
notably in Gertrude's.)
"It will simplify matters," said her mother, smiling, "but liberty is
not for us. _That_ tuneful peal will still ring on," and as she looked
at the Citizens' 'phone the peal came.
CHAPTER III.
One Monday evening the doctor and his wife sat chatting cosily before
the fire. In the midst of their conversation, Mary looked up suddenly.
"I had a queer little experience this morning, John, I want to tell you
about it."
"Tell ahead," said John, propping his slippered feet up on the fender.
"Well, I got my pen and paper ready to write a letter to Mrs. E. I
wanted to write it yesterday afternoon and tell her some little
household incidents just while they were taking place, as she is fond of
the doings and sayings of boys and they are more realistic if reported
in the present tense. But I couldn't get at it yesterday afternoon. When
I started to write it this morning it occurred to me to date the letter
Sunday afternoon and write it just as I would have done yesterday--so I
did. When I had got it half done or more I heard the door-bell and going
to open it I saw through the large glass--"
Ting-a-ling-ling-ling. Ting-a-ling-ling-ling.
The doctor went to the 'phone.
"Yes."
"Yes."
"Where do you live?"
"I'll be right down."
He went back, hastily removed his slippers and began putting on his
shoes. Mary saw that he had clean forgotten her story. Very well. It
wouldn't take more than a minute to finish it--there would be plenty of
time while he was getting into his shoes--but if he was not enough
interested to refer to it again she certainly would not. In a few
minutes the doctor was gone and Mary went to bed. An hour or two later
his voice broke in upon her slumber. "Back again," he said as he settled
down upon his pillow. In a minute he exclaimed, "Say, Mary, what was the
rest of that story?"
"O, don't get me roused up. I'm _so_ sleepy," she said drowsily.
"Well, I'd like to hear it." The interest in her little story which had
not been exhibited at the proper time was being exhibited now with a
vengeance. She sighed and said, "I can't think of it now--tell you in
the morning. Good night," and turned away.
When morning came and they were both awake, the doctor again referred to
the unfinished story.
"It's lost interest for me. It wasn't a story to start with, just a
little incident that seemed odd--"
"Well, let's have it."
"Well, then," said Mary, "I was writing away when the door-bell rang. I
went to open it and saw through the glass the laundry man--"
Ting-a-ling-ling-ling. Ting-a-ling-ling-ling. Ting-a-ling-ling-ling.
"Go on!" exclaimed her husband, hurriedly, "I'll wait till you finish."
"I'll not _race_ through a story in any such John Gilpin style," said
Mary, tartly. "Go, John!"
The doctor arose and went.
"No."
"I think not."
"Has she any fever?"
"All right, I'll be down in a little bit."
Then he went back. "Now you can finish," he said.
"Finis is written _here_," said Mary. "Don't say story to me again!" So
Mary's story remained unfinished.
But a few days later, when she was in the buggy with her husband she
relented. "Now that the 'phone can't cut me short, John, I will finish
about the odd incident just because you wanted to know. But it will fall
pretty flat now, as all things do with too many preliminary flourishes."
"Go on," said the doctor.
"Well, you know I told you I dated my letter back to Sunday afternoon,
and was writing away when I heard the door-bell ring. As I started
toward the door I saw the laundry man standing there. I was conscious of
looking at him in astonishment and in a dazed sort of way as I walked
across the large room to open the door. I am sure he must have noticed
the expression on my face. When I opened the door he asked as he always
does, 'Any laundry?'"
"'Any laundry _today_?' The words were on my tongue's end but I stopped
them in time. You see it was really Sunday to me, so deep into the
spirit of it had I got, and it was with a little shock that I came back
to Monday again in time to answer the man in a rational way. And now my
story's done."
"Not a bad one, either," said John, "I'm glad you condescended to finish
it."
* * * * *
The doctor came home at ten o'clock and went straight to bed and to
sleep. At eleven he was called.
"What is it?" he asked gruffly.
"It's time for Silas to take his medicine and he won't do it."
"Won't, eh?"
"No, he vows he won't."
"Well, let him alone for a while and then try again."
About one came another ring.
"We've both been asleep, Doctor, but I've been up fifteen minutes trying
to get him to take his medicine and he won't do it. He says it's too
damned nasty and that he don't need it anyhow."
"Tell him I say he's a mighty good farmer, but a devilish poor doctor."
"I don't know what to do. I can't make him take it."
"You'll have to let him alone for awhile I guess, maybe he'll change his
mind after awhile."
At three o'clock the doctor was again at the telephone.
"Doctor, he just will _not_ take it," the voice was now quite
distressed. "I can't manage him at all."
"You _ought_ to manage him. What's a wife for? Well, go to bed and don't
bother him or me any more tonight."
But early next morning Silas' wife telephoned again.
"I thought I ought to tell you that he hasn't taken it yet."
"He'll get well anyway. Don't be a bit uneasy about _him_," said the
doctor, laughing, as he rung off.
* * * * *
"It's time to go, John."
Mary was drawing on her gloves. She looked at her moveless husband as he
sat before the crackling blaze in the big fireplace.
"This is better than church," he made reply.
"But you promised you would go tonight. Come on."
"It isn't time yet, is it?"
"The last bell will ring before we get there."
"Well, let's wait till all that singing's over. That just about breaks
my back."
Mary sat down resignedly. If they missed the singing perhaps John would
not look at his watch and sigh so loud during the sermon. And it might
not be a bad idea to miss the singing for another reason. The last time
John had gone to church he had astonished her by sliding up beside her,
taking hold of the hymn-book and singing! It happened to be his old
favorite, "Sweet fields beyond the swelling flood."
Of course it was lovely that he should want to sing it with her--but the
_way_ he sang it! He was in the wrong key and he came out two or three
syllables behind on most of the lines, but undismayed by the sudden
curtailment went boldly ahead on the next. And Mary had been much
relieved when the hymn was ended and the book was closed. So now she
waited very patiently for her husband to make some move toward starting.
By and by he got up and they went out. No sooner was the door closed
behind them than the "ting-a-ling-ling-ling" was heard. The doctor threw
open the door and went back. Mary, waiting at the threshold, heard one
side of the dialogue.
"Yes."
"Down where?"
"Shake up your 'phone. I can't hear you."
"That's better. Now what is it?"
"Swallowed benzine, did she? How much?... That won't kill her. Give her
some warm water to drink. And give her a spoonful of mustard--anything
to produce vomiting...... She has? That's all right. Tell her to put her
finger down her throat and vomit some more..... No, I think it won't be
necessary for me to come down..... You would? Well, let me hear again in
the next hour or two, and if you still want me I'll come. Good-bye."
They walked down the street and as they drew near the office they saw
the figure of the office boy in the doorway silhouetted against the
light within. He was looking anxiously in their direction. Suddenly he
disappeared and the faint sound of a bell came to their ears. They
quickened their pace and as they came up the boy came hurriedly to the
door again.
"Is that you, Doctor?" he asked, peering out.
"Yes."
"I told a lady at the 'phone to wait a minute, she's 'phoned twice."
Mary waited at the door while her husband went into the office and over
to the 'phone.
"Yes. What is it?.... No. No. _No!_.... Listen to me..... Be _still_ and
listen to _me_! She's in no more danger of dying than _you_ are. She
couldn't die if she tried..... Be still, I say, and listen to me!" He
stamped his foot mightily. Mary laughed softly to herself. "Now don't
hang over her and _sympathize_ with her; that's exactly what she don't
need. And don't let the neighbors hang around her either. Shut the whole
tea-party out..... Well, tell 'em _I_ said so..... I don't care a damn
_what_ they think. Your duty and mine is to do the very best we can for
that girl. Now remember..... Yes, I'll be down on the nine o'clock train
tomorrow morning. Good-bye." He joined his wife at the door. "If anybody
wants me, come to the church," he said, turning to the boy.
Mary laid her hand within her husband's arm and they started on. They
met a man who stopped and asked the doctor how soon he would be at the
office, as he was on his way there to get some medicine.
"I'd better go back," said the doctor and back they went. It seemed to
Mary that her husband might move with more celerity in fixing up the
medicine. He was deliberation itself as he cut and arranged the little
squares of paper. Still more deliberately he heaped the little mounds of
white powder upon them. She looked on anxiously. At last he was ready to
fold them up! No, he reached for another bottle. He took out the cork,
but his spatula was not in sight. Nowise disturbed, he shifted bottles
and little boxes about on the table.
"Can't you use your knife, Doctor?" asked Mary.
"O, I'll find it--it's around here somewhere." In a minute or two the
missing spatula was discovered under a paper, and then the doctor
slowly, _so_ slowly, dished out little additions to the little mounds.
Then he laid the spatula up, put the cork carefully back in the bottle,
turned in his chair and put two questions to the waiting man, turned
back and folded the mounds in the squares with the most painstaking
care. In spite of herself Mary fidgeted and when the powders with
instructions were delivered and the man had gone, she rose hastily.
"_Do_ come now before somebody else wants something."
The singing was over and the sermon just beginning when they reached the
church. It progressed satisfactorily to the end. The doctor usually made
an important unit in producing that "brisk and lively air which a sermon
inspires when it is quite finished." But tonight, a few minutes before
the finale came, Mary saw the usher advancing down the aisle. He stopped
at their seat and bending down whispered something to the doctor, who
turned and whispered something to his wife.
"No, I'll stay and walk home with the Rands. I see they're here," she
whispered back.
The doctor rose and went out. "Who's at the office?" he asked, as he
walked away with the boy.
"She's not there yet, she telephoned. I told her you was at church."
"Did she say she couldn't wait?"
"She said she had been at church too, but a bug flew in her ear and she
had to leave, and she guessed you'd have to leave too, because she
couldn't stand it. She said it felt _awful_."
"Where is she?"
"She was at a house by the Methodist church, she said, when she 'phoned
to see if you was at the office. When I told her I'd get you from the
other church, she said she'd be at the office by the time you got
there."
And she was, sitting uneasily in a big chair.
"Doctor, I've had a flea in my ear sometimes, but this is a different
proposition. Ugh! Please get this creature out _now_. It feels as big as
a bat. Ugh! It's crawling further in, hurry!"
"Maybe we'd better wait a minute and see if it won't be like some other
things, in at one ear and out at the other."
"O, hurry, it'll get so far in you can't reach it."
"Turn more to the light," commanded the doctor, and in a few seconds he
held up the offending insect.
"O, you only got a little of it!"
"I got it all."
"Well, it certainly felt a million times bigger than that," and she
departed radiantly happy.
CHAPTER IV.
One day in early spring the doctor surprised his wife by asking her if
she would like to take a drive.
"In March? The roads are not passable yet, surely."
But the doctor assured her that the roads were getting pretty good
except in spots. "I have such a long journey ahead of me today that I
want you to ride out as far as Centerville and I can pick you up as I
come back."
"That's seven or eight miles. I'll go. I can stop at Dr. Parkin's and
chat with Mrs. Parkin till you come."
Accordingly a few minutes later the doctor and Mary were speeding along
through the town which they soon left far behind them.
About two miles out they saw a buggy down the road ahead of them which
seemed to be at a stand-still. When they drew near they found a woman at
the horses' heads with a broken strap in her hand. She was gazing
helplessly at the buggy which stood hub-deep in mud. She recognized the
doctor and called out, "Dr. Blank, if ever I needed a doctor in my life,
it's now."
"Stuck fast, eh?"
The doctor handed the reins to his wife and got out.
"I see--a broken single-tree. Well, I always unload when I get stuck, so
the first thing we do we'll take this big lummox out of here," he said
picking his way to the buggy. The lummox rose to her feet with a broad
grin and permitted herself to be taken out. She was a fat girl about
fourteen years old.
"My! I'll bet she weighs three hundred pounds," observed the doctor when
she was landed, which was immediately resented. Then he took the
hitching-rein and tied the tug to the broken end of the single-tree;
after which he went to the horses' heads and commanded them to "Come
on." They started and the next instant the vehicle was on terra firma.
Mother and daughter gave the doctor warm thanks and each buggy went its
separate way.
Mary was looking about her. "The elms have a faint suspicion that spring
is coming; the willows only are quite sure of it," she said, noting
their tender greenth which formed a soft blur of color, the only color
in all the gray landscape. No, there is a swift dash of blue, for a jay
has settled down on the top of a rail just at our travelers' right.
Soon they were crossing a long and high bridge spanning a creek which
only a week before had been a raging torrent; the drift, caught and held
by the trunks of the trees, and the weeds and grasses all bending in one
direction, told the story. But the waters had subsided and now lay in
deep, placid pools.
"Stop, John, quick!" commanded Mary when they were about half way
across. The doctor obeyed wondering what could be the matter. He looked
at his wife, who was gazing down into the pool beneath.
"I suppose I'm to stop while you count all the fish you can see."
"I was looking at that lovely concave sky down there. See those two
white clouds floating so serenely across the blue far, far below the
tip-tops of the elm trees."
The doctor drove relentlessly on.
"Another mudhole," said Mary after a while, "but this time the travelers
tremble on the brink and fear to launch away."
When they came up they found a little girl standing by the side of the
horse holding up over its back a piece of the harness. She held it in a
very aimless and helpless way. "See," said Mary, "she doesn't know what
to do a bit more than I should. I wonder if she can be alone."
The doctor got out and went forward to help her and discovered a young
man sitting cozily in the carriage. He glanced at him contemptuously.
"Your harness is broken, have you got a string?" he asked abruptly.
"N-n-o, I haven't," said the youth feeling about his pockets.
"Take your shoe-string. If you haven't got one I'll give you mine," and
he set his foot energetically on the hub of the wheel to unlace his
shoe.
"Why, I've got one here, I guess," and the young man lifted a reluctant
foot. The doctor saw and understood. The little sister was to fix the
harness in order to save her brother's brand new shoes from the mud.
"You'd better fix that harness yourself, my friend, and fix it strong,"
was the doctor's parting injunction as he climbed into the buggy and
started on.
"I don't like the looks of this slough of despond," said Mary. The next
minute the horses were floundering through it, tugging with might and
main. Now the wheels have sunk to the hubs and the horses are straining
every muscle.
"Merciful heaven!" gasped Mary. At last they were safely through, and
the doctor looking back said, "That is the last great blot on our
civilization--bad roads."
After a while there came from across the prairie the ascending,
interrogative _boo-oo-m_ of a prairie chicken not far distant, while
from far away came the faint notes of another. And now a different note,
soft, melodious and mournful is heard.
"How far away do you think that dove is?" asked the doctor.
"It sounds as if it might be half a mile."
"It is right up here in this tree in the field."
"Is it," said Mary, looking up. "Yes, I see, it's as pretty and soft as
its voice. But I'm getting sunburned, John. How hot a March day can
get!"
"Only two more miles and good road all the way."
A few minutes more and Mary was set down at Centerville, "I'll be back
about sunset," announced her husband as he drove off.
A very pleasant-faced woman answered the knock at the door. She had a
shingle in her hand and several long strips of muslin over her arm. She
smilingly explained that she didn't often meet people at the door with a
shingle but that she was standing near the door when the knock came.
Mary, standing by the bed and removing hat and gloves, looked about her.
"What are you doing with that shingle and all this cotton and stuff,
Mrs. Parkin?" she asked.
"Haven't you ever made a splint?"
"A splint? No indeed, I'm not equal to that."
"That's what I'm doing now. There's a boy with a broken arm in the
office in the next room."
"Oh, your husband has his office here at the house."
"Yes, and it's a nuisance sometimes, too, but one gets used to it."
"I'll watch you and learn something new about the work of a doctor's
wife."
"You'll learn then to have a lot of pillow slips and sheets on hand. Old
or new, Dr. Parkin just tears them up when he gets in a hurry--it
doesn't matter to him what goes."
The doctor's wife put cotton over the whole length of the shingle and
wound the strips of muslin around it; then taking a needle and thread
she stitched it securely. Mary sat in her chair watching the process
with much interest. "You have made it thicker in some places than in
others," she said.
"Yes; that is to fit the inequalities of the arm." Mary looked at her
admiringly. "You are something of an artist," she observed.
Just as Mrs. Parkin finished it her husband appeared in the doorway.
"Is it done?" he asked.
"It's just finished."
"May I see you put it on, Doctor?" asked Mary, rising and coming
forward.
"Why, good afternoon, Mrs. Blank. I'm glad to see you out here. Yes,
come right in. How's the doctor?"
"Oh, he is well and happy--I think he expects to cut off a foot this
afternoon."
A boy with a frightened look on his face stood in the doctor's office
with one sleeve rolled up. The doctor adjusted the fracture, then
applied the splint while his wife held it steady until he had made it
secure. When the splint was in place and the boy had gone a messenger
came to tell the doctor he was wanted six miles away.
About half an hour afterward a little black-eyed woman came in and said
she wanted some more medicine like the last she took.
"The doctor's gone," said Mrs. Parkin, "and will not be back for several
hours."
"Well, you can get it for me, can't you?"
"Do you know the name of it?"
"No, but I believe I could tell it if I saw it," said the patient, going
to the doctor's shelves and looking closely at the bottles and phials
with their contents of many colors. She took up a three-ounce bottle.
"This is like the other bottle and I believe the medicine is just the
same color. Yes, I'm sure it is," she said, holding it up to the light.
Mary looked at her and then at Mrs. Parkin.
"I wouldn't like to risk it," said the latter lady.
"Oh, I'm not afraid. I don't want to wait until the doctor comes and I
know this must be like the other. It's exactly the same color."
"My good woman," said Mary, "you _certainly_ will not risk that. It
might kill you."
"No, Mrs. Dawson, you must either wait till the doctor comes or come
again," said Mrs. Parkin. The patient grumbled a little about having to
make an extra trip and took her leave.
When the door had closed behind her Mary asked the other doctor's wife
if she often had patients like that.
"Oh, yes. People come here when the doctor is away and either want me to
prescribe for them or to prescribe for themselves."
"You don't do it, do you?"
"Sometimes I do, when I am perfectly sure what I am doing. Having the
office here in the house so many years I couldn't help learning a few
things."
"I wouldn't prescribe for anything or anybody. I'd be afraid of killing
somebody." About an hour later Mary, looking out of the window, saw a
wagon stopping at the gate. It contained a man and a woman and two
well-grown girls.
"Hello!" called the man.
"People call you out instead of coming in. That is less trouble,"
observed Mary. The doctor's wife went to the door.
"Is Doc at home?"
"No, he has gone to the country."
"How soon will he be back?"
"Not before supper time, probably."
The man whistled, then looked at his wife and the two girls.
"Well, Sally," he said, "I guess we'd better git out and wait fur 'im."
"W'y, Pa, it'll be dark long before we git home, if we do."
"I can't help that. I'm not agoin' to drive eight miles tomorry or next
day nuther."
"If ye'd 'a started two hour ago like I wanted ye to do, maybe Doc'd 'a
been here and we c'd 'a been purty nigh home by this time."
"Shet up! I told ye I wasn't done tradin' then."
"It don't take _me_ all day to trade a few aigs for a jug o' m'lasses
an' a plug o' terbacker."
For answer the head of the house told his family to "jist roll out now."
They rolled out and in a few minutes they had all rolled in. Mrs. Parkin
made a heroic effort not to look inhospitable which made Mary's heroic
effort not to look amused still more heroic.
When at last the afternoon was drawing to a close Mary went out into the
yard to rest. She wished John would come. Hark! There is the ring of
horses' hoofs down the quiet road. But these are white horses, John's
are bays. She turns her head and looks into the west. Out in the meadow
a giant oak-tree stands between her and the setting sun. Its upper
branches are outlined against the grey cloud which belts the entire
western horizon, while its lower branches are sharply etched against the
yellow sky beneath the grey.
What a calm, beautiful sky it was!
She thought of some lines she had read more than once that morning ... a
bit from George Eliot's Journal:
"How lovely to look into that brilliant distance and see the ship on the
horizon seeming to sail away from the cold and dim world behind it right
into the golden glory! I have always that sort of feeling when I look at
sunset. It always seems to me that there in the west lies a land of
light and warmth and love."
A carriage was now coming down the road at great speed. Mary saw it was
her husband and went in to put on her things. In a few minutes more she
was in the buggy and they were bound for home. It was almost ten o'clock
when they got there. The trip had been so hard on the horses that all
the spirit was taken out of them. The doctor, too, was exceedingly
tired. "Forty-two miles is a long trip to make in an afternoon," he
said.
"I hope Jack and Maggie are not up so late."
"It would be just like them to sit up till we came."
The buggy stopped; the door flew open and Jack and Maggie stood framed
in the doorway with the leaping yellow firelight for a background.
CHAPTER V.
Once in a while sympathy for a fellow mortal kept the doctor's wife an
interested listener at the 'phone. Going, one morning, to speak to a
friend about some little matter she heard her husband say:
"What is it, doctor?" A physician in a little town some ten or twelve
miles distant, who had called Dr. Blank in consultation a few days
before, was calling him.
"I think our patient is doing very well, but her heart keeps getting a
little faster."
"How fast is it now?"
"About 120."
"But the disease is pretty well advanced now--that doesn't mean as much
as it would earlier. But you might push a little on the brandy, or the
strychnine--how much brandy have you given her since I saw her?"
"I have given her four ounces."
"Four ounces!"
"Yes."
"Four ounces in three days? I think you must mean four drachms."
"_Yes._ It _is_ drachms. Four ounces _would_ be fixing things up. I've
been giving her digitalis; what do you think about that?"
"That's all right, but I think that strychnine would be a little
better."
"Would you give her any aromatic spirits of ammonia?"
"Does she rattle?"
"A little."
"Then you might give her a little of that. And keep the room open and
stick right to her and she ought to get along. Don't give her much to
eat."
"Is milk all right?"
"Yes. You bet it is."
"All right then, doctor, I believe that's all. Good-bye."
On another occasion, Mary caught this fragment:
"She's so everlastin' sore that she just hollers and yells every time I
go near her. Would you give her any more morphine?"
"Morphine's a thing you can't monkey with you know, Doctor. You want to
be mighty careful about that."
"Yes. I know. How long will that morphine last?"
"That depends on how you use it. It won't last long if you use too much
and neither will she."
"I mean how long will it last in the system?"
"O! Why, three or four hours."
"Well, I think she don't need no more medicine."
Mary smiled at the double negative and when she laughingly spoke of it
that night her husband assured her that that doctor's singleness of
purpose more than offset his doubleness of negative. That he was a fine
fellow and a good physician just the same.
* * * * *
One morning in March just as the doctor arose from the breakfast table
he was called to the 'phone.
"Is this Dr. Blank?"
"Yes."
"Doctor, will it hurt the baby to bathe it every morning? I've been
doing that but some of the folks around here say I oughtn't to do it;
they say it isn't good for a baby to bathe it so often."
The doctor answered solemnly, "The baby's fat and healthy isn't it?"
"Yes, sir."
"And pretty?"
"Yes, _sir_."
"Likes to see its mamma?"
"You _know_ it."
"Likes to see its papa?"
"He does that!" said the young mother.
"Then ask me next fall if it will hurt to bathe the baby every morning."
"All right, Doctor," laughed the baby's mamma.
"The fools are not all dead yet," said John, as he took his hat and
departed. On the step he turned back and put his head in at the door.
"Keep an ear out, Mary. I'm likely to be away from the office a good bit
this morning."
An hour later a call came. Mary put the ear that was "out" to the
receiver:
"It's on North Adams street."
"All right. I'll be out there after awhile," said her husband's placid
voice.
"Don't wait too long. He may die before you git here."
"No, he won't. I'll be along pretty soon."
"Well, come just as quick as you can."
"All right," and the listener knew that it might be along toward noon
before he got there.
About eleven o'clock the 'phone rang sharply.
"Is this Dr. Blank's house?"
"Yes."
"Is he there?"
"I saw him pass here about twenty minutes ago. I'm sure he'll be back to
the office in a little bit."
"My land! I've been here three or four times. Looks like I'd ketch him
_some_ time."
"You are at the office then? If you will sit down and wait just a little
while, he will be in."
"I come six miles to see him. I supposed of course he'd be in _some_
time," grumbled the voice (of course a woman's).
"But when he is called to visit a patient he must go, you know,"
explained Mary.
"Y-e-s," admitted the voice reluctantly. "Well, I'll wait here a little
while longer."
Ten minutes later Mary rang the office. Her husband replied.
"How long have you been back, John?"
"O, five or ten minutes."
"Did you find a woman waiting for you?"
"No."
"Well, I assured her you'd be there in a few minutes and she said she'd
wait."
"Do you know who she was?"
"No. Some one from the country. She said she came six miles to see you
and she supposed you'd be in your office _some_ time, and that sometime
was mightily emphatic."
"O, yes, I know now. She'll be in again," laughed the doctor and Mary
felt relieved, for in the querulous tones of the disappointed woman she
had read disapproval of the doctor and of herself too, as the partner
not only of his joys and sorrows, but of his laggard gait as well. The
people who wait for a doctor are not apt to consider that a good many
more may be waiting for him also at that particular moment of time.
CHAPTER VI.
One of the most discouraging things I have encountered is a great blank
silence. The doctor asks his wife to keep a close watch on the telephone
for a little while, and leaves the office. Pretty soon it rings and she
goes to answer it.
"Hello?" Silence. "What is it?" More silence. She knows that "unseen
hands or spirits" did not ring that bell. She knows perfectly well that
there is a listening ear at the other end of the line. But you cannot
converse with silence any more than you can speak to a man you meet on
the street if he purposely looks the other way.
Mary knew that the listening ear belonged to someone who recognized that
it was the wife who answered instead of the doctor, and therefore kept
silent. She smiled and hung up the receiver--sorry not to be able to
help her husband and to give the needed information to the patient.
But when this had happened several times she thought of a more
satisfactory way of dealing with the situation. She would take down the
receiver and ask, "What is it?" She would wait a perceptible instant and
then say distinctly and pleasantly, "Doctor Blank will be out of the
office for about twenty minutes. He asked me to tell you." That never
failed to bring an answer, a hasty, shame-voiced, "Oh, I--well--thank
you, Mrs. Blank, I'll call again, then."
* * * * *
The doctor's absence from town has its telephonic puzzles. One day
during Dr. Blank's absence his wife was called to the 'phone.
"Mrs. Blank, a telegram has just come for the doctor. What must I do
with it?" It was the man at the office who put the question.
"Do you know what it is, or where it's from?"
"I asked the operator and he says it's from Mr. Slocum, who is in
Cincinnati. He telegraphed the doctor to go and see his wife who is
sick."
"Well, take it over to Dr. Brown's office and ask him to go and see
her."
About half an hour later the thought of the telegram came into her mind.
"I wonder if he found Dr. Brown in. I'd better find out."
She rang the office. "Did you find Dr. Brown in?"
"Yes, he was there."
"And you gave the message to him?"
"Yes, he took it."
"I hope he went right down?"
"No, he said he wouldn't go."
"Wouldn't go!" exclaimed Mary, much astonished.
"He said he knew Slocum and he was in all probability drunk when he sent
the message."
"Why, what a queer conclusion to arrive at. The doctor may be right but
I think we ought to know."
"I called up their house after I came back from Dr. Brown's office, but
nobody answered. So she can't be very sick or she'd be at home."
Mary put up the receiver hesitatingly. She was not satisfied about this
matter. She went about her work, but her thoughts were on the message
and the sick wife. Suddenly she thought of something--the Slocum
children were in school. The mother had not been able to get to the
'phone to answer it. The thought of her lying there alone and helpless
was too much. Mary went swiftly to the telephone and called the office.
"Johnson, you have to pass Mrs. Slocum's on your way to dinner. I think
she may have been too ill to go to the 'phone. Please stop and find out
something definite."
"All right."
"And let me know as soon as you can. If she isn't sick don't tell her
anything about the telegram. Think up some excuse as you go along for
coming in, in case all is well."
In about twenty minutes the expected summons came.
"Well, I stopped, Mrs. Blank."
"What did you find?"
"Well, I found a hatchet close to Slocum's gate."
"How lucky!"
"I took it in to ask if it was theirs."
"Was it?"
"No, it wasn't."
"Who told you so?"
"Mrs. Slocum, herself, and she's about the healthiest looking invalid
I've seen lately."
"I'm much relieved. Thank you, Johnson." And as she left the 'phone she
meditated within herself, "Verily, the tender thoughtfulness of the
husband drunk exceedeth that of the husband sober."
When night came and Mary was preparing for bed she thought, "It will be
very unpleasant to be called up only to tell people the doctor is not
here." She rose, went to the 'phone and called central.
"This is Mrs. Blank, central. If anyone should want the doctor tonight,
or for the next two nights, please say he is out of town and will not be
home until Saturday."
Then with a delicious sense of freedom she went to bed and slept as
sweetly as in the long-ago when the telephone was a thing undreamed of.
* * * * *
The ting-a-ling-ling-ling--came as Mary was pouring boiling water into
the teapot, just before six on a cool July evening. The maid was
temporarily absent and Mary had been getting supper in a very leisurely
way when she saw her husband step up on the porch. Then her leisure was
exchanged for hurry. The doctor's appearance before meal time was the
signal to which she responded automatically--he had to catch a
train--someone must have him right away, or what not? She must not keep
him waiting a minute. She pushed the teapot back on the stove and went
swiftly to the 'phone.
"Is this Dr. Blank's office?" asked a disturbed feminine voice.
"No, his residence. He is here. Wait a minute, please, and I will call
him."
She hurried out to the porch, "Isn't papa here?" she asked of her small
boy sitting there.
"He _was_."
"Well, where is he now?"
"I don't know where he is."
Provoking! She hurried back. He must be in the garden. An occasional
impulse to hoe sometimes came over him (especially if the day happened
to be Sunday).
In the kitchen her daughter stood at a table cutting the bread for
supper. "Go quick, and see if papa's in the garden. Tell him to come to
the 'phone at once."
Then she hurried back to re-assure the waiting one. But what could she
tell her? Perhaps the doctor was not in the garden. She rushed out and
beat her daughter in the race toward it. She sent her voice ahead,
"John!" she called.
"Yes."
"Come to the 'phone this minute." Back she ran. Would she still be
waiting?
"Hello."
"Hello."
"Yes, the doctor's here. He's in the garden but will be in in just a
minute. Hold the 'phone please."
"Very well, thank you."
It was a minute and a half before the doctor got there.
"Hello." No answer.
"Hello!" Silence.
"_Hello!_" Still no reply. The doctor rang sharply for central.
"Who was calling me a minute ago."
"I don't know--we can't keep track of everybody who calls."
The doctor hung up the receiver with an explosive monosyllable. Mary's
patience was giving out too. "She couldn't wait one half minute. I told
her you would be here in a minute and it took you a minute and a half."
"She may be waiting at the office, I'll go down there."
"I wouldn't do it," said Mary, warmly. "It's much easier for her to stay
a half minute at the 'phone than for you to tramp back to the office."
But he went. As his wife went back to the kitchen her daughter called,
"Mother, did you take the loaf of bread in there with you?"
"Why, no."
"Well, it's not on the table where I was cutting it when you sent me
after father."
"It's on the floor!" shouted the small boy, peering through the window.
"_I_ won't eat any of it!"
"Don't, exquisite child," said his sister, stooping over to recover the
loaf, dropped in her haste. Ting-a-ling-ling-ling. Mary went.
"Isn't the doctor coming?"
"He came. He called repeatedly, but got no reply."
"I was right here with my ear to the 'phone the whole time."
"He concluded it might be someone waiting for him at the office, so he
has gone down there."
"I'm not there. I'm here at home."
"Hello," broke in the doctor's voice.
"O, here you are!"
"Doctor, I've been taking calomel today and then I took some salts and I
thoughtlessly dissolved them in some lemonade I had handy!"
A solemn voice asked, "Have you made your will?"
A little giggle before the patient said "No."
"You'll have plenty of time. You needn't hurry about it."
"You don't think it will hurt me then?"
"No. Not a bit."
"I was afraid the acid might salivate me."
"Yes, that's an old and popular idea. But it won't."
"That sounds good, Doctor. I was awfully scared. Much obliged.
Good-bye."
* * * * *
A week or two after the above incident the doctor was seated at his
dinner, a leisurely Sunday dinner. The telephone called and he rose and
went to it. The usual hush fell upon the table in order that he might
hear.
"Is this Dr. Blank?"
"Yes."
"Well, Doctor, this is Mrs. Abner. Would it be too much trouble for you
to step into Hall's and ask them to send me up a quart of ice-cream for
dinner?"
"Certainly not. A quart?"
"Yes, please. I'm sorry to bother you with it. They ought to have a
'phone."
"No trouble."
The doctor hung up the receiver and reached for his hat.
"Why, John, you surely can finish your dinner before you go!" exclaimed
Mary.
"Then I'd spoil Mrs. Abner's dinner."
"Mrs. Abner!"
"Yes, she wants a quart of ice-cream for dinner."
"I'd like to know what _you've_ got to do with it," said Mary tartly.
"She thinks I'm at the office."
"And the office is next door to Hall's and Hall's have no 'phone," said
Mary smiling. "Of course you must go. Wouldn't Mrs. Abner feel mortified
though if she knew you had to leave your home in the midst of dinner to
order her ice-cream. But do hurry back, John."
"Maybe I'd better stay there till the dinner hour is well over," laughed
John. "Every now and then someone wants me to step into Hall's and order
up something."
He went good-naturedly away and his wife looked after him marveling, but
withal admiring.
* * * * *
The doctor and his wife had been slumbering peacefully for an hour or
two. Then came a loud ring and they were wide awake at once.
"That wasn't the telephone, John, it was the door-bell."
The doctor got into his dressing-gown and went to the door.
His wife heard a man's voice, then her husband reply, then the door
shut. She lay back on her pillow but it was evident John was not coming
back. She must have dozed, for it seemed to her a long time had gone by
when she started to hear a noise in the other room. John had not yet got
off.
"You have to go some place, do you?" she called.
"Yes,--just a little way. Look out for the 'phone, Mary. I think I'll
have to go down to Hanson's tonight, to meet the stork."
"But how can I get word to you? They have no 'phone or that man wouldn't
have come after you."
"Well, I have promised Hanson and I'll have to go there. If he 'phones
before I get back tell him he'll have to come down to Stetson's after
me. Or, you might wake one of the boys and send him over."
"I'd rather try to wake Rip Van Winkle," said Mary, in a tone that
settled it.
In about an hour the doctor was back and snuggling down under the
covers.
"They've got a fine boy over to Stetson's," he announced to his sleepy
wife.
"They have!" she exclaimed, almost getting awake. Again they slept.
Ting-a-ling-ling-ling. Ting-a-ling-ling-ling. Ting-a-ling-ling-ling.
"That's Hanson," exclaimed the doctor springing up and groping his way
to the 'phone.
"Yes."
"Out where?"
"Smith's on Parks avenue?.... _Not_ Smith's?.... I understand--a little
house farther down that street..... Yes, I'll come..... O, as soon as I
can dress and get there."
Mary heard, but when he had gone, was soon in a deep sleep.
By and by she found herself flinging off the covers and hurrying
guiltily toward the summoning tyrant, her subconscious self telling her
that this was the third peal.
"Hello."
"Is the doctor there, Mrs. Blank?"
"No, he is over at Stetson's. He said if you 'phoned to tell you you
would have to come there as they have no 'phone."
"Wait a minute, Mrs. Blank," said the voice of central, "some one is
trying to speak--"
"What have I said!" thought Mary suddenly, thoroughly awake. "He got
back from Stetson's and went to another place. But I don't know what
place nor where it is."
The kindly voice of central went on:
"It's the doctor who is talking, Mrs. Blank. I understand now. He says
if that message comes you are to 'phone him at James Smith's on Parks
avenue."
Mary looked at the clock. "So he's been there all this time. That stork
is a little too busy tonight," she thought as she went shivering back to
bed.
Toward daylight she was roused by the return of her husband, who
announced a new daughter in the world and then they went to sleep. The
next morning she said, "John, I've just thought of something. Why didn't
you have central 'phone you at Smith's if Hanson called and save me all
that bother?"
"I guess it's because I'm so used to bothering you Mary, that I didn't
think of it."
* * * * *
Mary was upstairs cleaning house most vigorously when the ring came. She
stopped and listened. It came again--three. She set the dust pan down
and went.
"I'll have to be out for an hour or more, Mary," said the doctor.
"I heard that sigh," he laughed, "but it won't be very hard to sort of
keep an ear on the 'phone, will it? Johnson may get in soon and then it
won't be necessary."
"Very well, then, John," and she went upstairs, leaving the doors open
behind her.
She had just reached the top when she had to turn about and retrace her
steps.
"Hello." No answer.
"Is someone calling Dr. Blank's house or office?"
"I rang your 'phone by mistake," said central. Mary trudged up the
stairs again. "This is more tiresome than cleaning house," she said to
herself as she went along.
In twenty minutes the summons came. She leaned her broom against the
wall and went down.
"O, this is Mrs. Blank. I'm very sorry to have put you to this
trouble--I wanted the doctor."
She recognized the voice of her old pastor for whom she had a most
kindly regard.
"He is out, but will be back within half an hour now, Mr. Rutledge."
"Thank you, I'll call again, but I wonder that you knew my voice." Mary
laughed.
"I haven't heard it for awhile, but maybe I'll be at church next Sunday,
if minding the telephone doesn't make me feel too wicked."
"It's the wicked that church is for--come by all means."
"I didn't mean to detain you, Mr. Rutledge. It is restful, though, after
dragging one's weary feet down to the 'phone to hear something beside
all the ills that flesh is heir to. Come to see us soon--one day next
week."
Once more she wended her way upstairs and in about fifteen minutes came
the ting-a-ling-a-ling-a-ling. "I surrender!" she declared.
When she had gone down and put the receiver to her ear her husband's
voice spoke kindly,
"I'm back, Mary, you're released."
"Thank you, John, you are very thoughtful," and she smiled as she took
off her sun-bonnet and sat herself down. "Not another time will I climb
those stairs this morning."
* * * * *
Mary sat one evening dreamily thinking about them--these messages that
came every day, every day!
Doctor, will it hurt Jennie to eat some tomatoes this morning--she
craves them so?
Will is a great deal better. Can he have some ice-cream for dinner?
I can hardly manage Henry any longer, Doctor, he's determined he _will_
have more to eat. Can I begin giving him a little more today?
Lemonade won't hurt Helen, will it? She wants some.
Doctor, I forget how many drops of that clear medicine I am to give.....
Ten, you say? Thank you.
Dr. Blank, is it after meals or before that the dark medicine is to be
given..... I thought so, but I wanted to be sure.
We are out of those powders you left. Do you think we will need any
more?.... Then I'll send down for them.
How long will you be in the office this morning, Doctor?...... Very
well, I'll be down in about an hour. I want you to see my throat.
You wanted me to let you know how Johnny is this morning. I don't think
he has any fever now and he slept all night, so I guess you won't need
to come down today.
Dr. Blank, I've got something coming on my finger. Do you suppose it's a
felon?.... You can tell better when you see it?.... Well, I suppose you
can. I'll be down at the office pretty soon and then I want you to tell
me it's _not_ a felon.
Mary seems a good deal better this morning, but she still has that pain
in her side.
Doctor, I don't believe Joe is as well as he was last night. I think you
had better come down.
As these old, old stories came leisurely into Mary's thoughts the
telephone rang three times. She rose from her chair before the fire and
went to answer it.
"Is this Dr. Blank's office?"
"No, his residence."
"Is the doctor there?"
"No, but he will be down on the seven o'clock train."
"And it's now not quite six. This is Mr. Andrews."
Mary knew the name and the man.
"My wife is sick and I want to get a pint of alcohol for her."
"An old subterfuge," thought Mary, "I'm afraid he wants it for himself."
She knew that he was often under its influence.
"I can't get it without a prescription from a physician, you know. She
needs it right away."
"The thirst is on him," thought our listener, pityingly.
The voice went on, "Mrs. Blank, couldn't you just speak to the druggist
about it so I could get it right away?"
"Mr. Andrews," she said hastily, "the druggist would pay no attention to
me. I'm not a physician, you know. The doctor will be here in an
hour--see him," and she hurried the receiver into its place, anxious to
get away from it. This was a story that was entirely new to her. Never
before had she been asked to procure a prescription for alcohol or any
of its attendant spirits. She liked the old stories best.
* * * * *
The doctor had been to the city and had got home at four o'clock in the
morning. He had had to change cars in the night and consequently had had
little sleep. When the door-bell rang his wife awakened instantly at the
expected summons and rose to admit him. In a little while both were fast
asleep. The wife, about a half hour later, found herself struggling to
speak to somebody about something, she did not know what. But when the
second long peal came from the 'phone she was fully awakened. How she
hated to rouse the slumberer at her side.
"John," she called softly. He did not move.
"John!" a little louder. He stirred slightly, but slept on.
"John, _John_!"
"Huh-h?"
"The telephone."
He threw back the covers, and rising, stumbled to the 'phone.
"Hello."
The voice of a little boy came to his half-awakened ear.
"_Say_, Pa, _I_ can't sell these papers an' git through in time fer
school."
"Yes, you _can_!" roared a voice. "You jist want to fool around." The
doctor went back to bed.
"Wasn't the message for you?" inquired his wife. "What a shame to rouse
you from your sleep for nothing."
The doctor told her what the message was and was back in slumberland in
an incredibly short space of time. Not so his wife. She was too
thoroughly awake at last and dawn was beginning to peep around the edges
of the window shades. She would not court slumber now but would lie
awake with her own thoughts which were very pleasant thoughts this
morning. By and by she rose softly, dressed and went out onto the
veranda and looked long into the reddening eastern sky. Ever since she
could remember she had felt this keen delight at the aspect of the sky
in the very early morning. She stood for awhile, drinking in the beauty
and the peacefulness of it all. Then she went in to her awakening
household, glad that the little boy had 'phoned his "Pa" and by some
means had got her too.
* * * * *
One midsummer night a tiny ringing came faintly and pleasantly into
Mary's dreams. Not till it came the second or third time did she awaken
to what it was. Then she sat up in bed calling her husband, who had just
awakened too and sprung out of bed. Dazed, he stumbled about and could
not find his way. With Mary's help he got his bearings and the next
minute his thunderous "Hello" greeted her ears.
"Yes."
"Worse tonight? In what way?"
An instant's silence. "Mrs. Brownson?" Silence. "Mrs. Brownson!"
Silence.
"Damn that woman! She's rung off."
"Well, don't swear into the 'phone, John. It's against the rules.
Besides, she might hear you."
The doctor was growling his way to his clothes.
"I suppose I've got to go down there," was all the answer he made. When
he was dressed and the screen had banged behind him after the manner of
screens, Mary settled herself to sleep which came very soon. But she was
soon routed out of it. She went to the 'phone, expecting to hear a
querulous woman's voice asking, "Has the doctor started yet?" and her
lips were framing the old and satisfactory reply, "Yes, he must be
nearly there now," when a man's voice asked, "Is this Dr. Blank's
residence?"
"Yes."
"Is the doctor there?"
"No, but he will be back in about twenty minutes."
"Will you please tell him to come to J. H. Twitchell's?"
"Yes, I'll send him right down."
"Thank you."
She went back to her bed room then, turning, retraced her steps. The
doctor could come home by way of Twitchell's as their home was not a
great distance from the Brownson's.
She rang the Brownson's and after a little while a voice answered.
"Is this Mrs. Brownson?"
"Yes."
"May I speak to Dr. Blank. I think he must be there now."
"He's been here. He's gone home."
Mary knew by the voice that its owner had not enjoyed getting out of
bed. "I wonder how she would like to be in my place," she thought,
smiling. She dared not trust herself to her pillow. She might fall
asleep and not waken when her husband came in. She wondered what time it
was. Up there on the wall the clock was ticking serenely away--she had
only to turn the button beside her to find out. But she did not turn it.
In the sweet security of the dark she felt safe. In one brief flash of
light some prowling burglar might discover her.
She sat down by the open window and looked up into the starlit sky. They
were out tonight in countless numbers. Over there toward the northwest,
lying along the tops of the trees was the Great Dipper. Wasn't it?
Surely that particular curve in the handle was not to be found in any
other constellation. She tried to see the Dipper itself but a cherry
tree near her window blotted it out. Bend and peer as she might the
branches intervened. It was tantalizing. She rose irresolute. Should she
step out doors where the cherry tree would not be in the way? Not for a
thousand dippers! She walked to another window. That view shut even the
handle out. She looked for the Pleiades. They were not in the section of
sky visible from the window where she stood. She turned and listened.
Did she hear footsteps down the walk? She ought to be hearing her
husband's by this time. He could not be walking at his usual gait. There
he came! She went to the door looked through the screen and halted him
as he drew near the steps.
"John, you'll have to take another trip. Mr. Twitchell has 'phoned for
you."
He turned and was soon out of sight. "Now! I can go to bed with a clear
conscience," and Mary sought her pillow. But she had better stay awake
until he had time to get there lest Mr. Twitchell should 'phone again.
In five or ten minutes the danger would be over. She waited. At last she
closed her eyes to sleep. But what would be the use? In twenty minutes
more her husband would come in and rouse her out of it. She had better
just keep awake till he got back. And the next thing Mary heard was a
snore. She opened her eyes to find it was broad daylight and her husband
was sleeping soundly beside her.
CHAPTER VII.
One afternoon in June Mary went into her husband's office.
"Has _The Record_ come?" she asked.
"Yes, it's on the table in the next room."
She went into the adjoining room and seated herself by the table. Taking
up _The Record_, she turned to the editorial page, but before she could
begin reading she heard a voice in the office say, "How do you do,
Doctor?"
"How do you do, Mr. Jenkins. Take a seat."
"No, I guess I'll not sit down. I just wanted to get--a prescription."
"The baby's better, isn't it?"
"Oh, the baby's all right, but I want a prescription for myself."
"What sort of prescription?"
"I have to take a long ride in the morning, driving cattle, and I want a
prescription for a pint of whiskey."
Mary listened for her husband's reply. It came.
"Jenkins, I have taken many a long ride through dust and heat, through
rain and snow and storm, and I never yet have had to take any whiskey
along."
"Well, I have a little trouble with my heart and--"
"The trouble's in your head. If you'd throw away that infernal pipe--"
"Oh, it's no use to lecture me on that any more."
"Very well, your tobacco may be worth more to you than your heart."
"Well, will you give me that prescription?"
"Certainly I won't. You don't need whiskey and you'll not get it from
me."
"Go to h-ll!"
"All right, I'll meet _you_ there." At which warm farewell between these
two good friends, Mary leaned back in her chair and laughed silently.
Then she mused: "People will not be saved from themselves. If only they
would be, how much less of sin and sickness and sorrow there would be in
the world."
Presently the doctor came in.
"I have a trip to make tonight, Mary. How would you like a star-light
drive?" Mary said she would like it very much indeed.
Accordingly, at sunset the doctor drove up and soon they were out in the
open country. Chatting of many things they drove along and by and by
Mary's eyes were attracted to a beautiful castle up in the clouds in the
west, on a great golden rock jutting out into the blue. Far below was a
grand woman's form in yellow floating robes. She stood with face
upturned and arms extended in an attitude of sorrow as if she had been
banished from her father's house.
There comes the father now. Slowly, majestically, an old man with
flowing beard of gold moves toward the edge of the great rock. Now he
has reached it. He bends his head and looks below. The attitude of the
majestic woman has changed to that of supplication. And now the father
stretches down forgiving arms and the queenly daughter bows her head
against the mighty wall and weeps in gladness. Now castle and rock,
father and daughter slowly interchange places and vanish from her sight.
The gold turns to crimson, then fades to gray. Just before her up there
in the clouds is a huge lion, couchant. See! he is going to spring
across the pale blue chasm to the opposite bank. If he fails he will
come right down into the road--"Oh!"
"What is it?" asked the doctor, looking around, and Mary told him with a
rather foolish smile.
The twilight deepened into dusk and the notes of a whippoorwill came to
them from a distance. "You and I must have nothing but sweet thoughts
right now, John, because then we'll get to keep them for a year." She
quoted:
"'Tis said that whatever sweet feeling
May be throbbing within the fond heart,
When listening to a whippoorwill s-pieling,
For a twelvemonth will never depart."
"Spieling doesn't seem specially in the whippoorwill's line."
"It's _exactly_ in his line. Years ago when I was a little girl he
proved it. One evening at dusk I was sitting in an arbor when he, not
suspecting my presence, alighted within a few feet of me and began his
song. It was wonderfully interesting to watch his little throat puff and
puff with the notes as they poured forth, but the thing that astounded
me was the length of time he sang without ever pausing for breath. And
so he is a genuine spieler. I will add, however, that the line is 'When
listening to a whippoorwill _singing_.' But my literary conscience will
never let me rhyme _singing_ with _feeling_, hence the sudden change."
"Now I'll speak _my_ piece," announced the doctor:
"De frogs in de pon' am a singin' all de night;
Wid de hallelujah campmeetin' tune;
An' dey all seem to try wid deir heart, soul and might
To tell us ob de comin' of de June."
"_Aren't_ they having a hallelujah chorus over in that meadow, though!"
Darkness settled over the earth. The willow trees, skirting the road for
a little distance, lifted themselves in ghostly tracery against the
starlit sky. A soft breeze stirred their branches like the breath of a
gentle spirit abiding there. They passed a cozy farmhouse nestled down
among tall trees. Through the open door they could see a little
white-robed figure being carried to bed in its father's arms, while the
mother crooned a lullaby over the cradle near.
For a long time they drove in silence. Mary knew that her husband was in
deep thought. Of what was he thinking? The pretty home scene in the farm
house had sent him into a reverie. He went back five or six years to a
bright spring day. He was sitting alone in his office when an old man, a
much respected farmer, came in slowly, closed the door behind him and
sat down. The doctor who knew him quite well saw that he was troubled
and asked if there was anything he could do for him. The old man leaned
his head on his hand but did not reply. It seemed that no words would
come in which to tell his errand.
Puzzled and sympathetic the doctor sat silent and waited. In a little
while the farmer drew his chair very near to that of the doctor's and
said in a low voice, "Doctor, I'm in deep trouble. I come to you because
you are one of my best friends. You have a chance to prove it now such
as you never had before in all the years you've been our doctor."
"Tell me your trouble and if I can help you, I will certainly do so."
"It's Mary. She's gone wrong, and the disgrace will kill her mother if
she finds it out."
For an instant the doctor did not speak; then he asked, "Are you sure
that this is true?"
"Yes. She came to me last night and nestled down in my arms, just as
she's done every night since she was a baby. She cried like her heart
would break and then she said, 'Father, I _must_ tell you, but don't
tell mother'; and then she told me."
The old man, white and trembling, looked beseechingly at the doctor.
"Doctor, this must not be. You must stop it before there is any breath
of scandal. Oh, for a minute last night I wanted to kill her."
The doctor's face was stern. "If you had killed her your crime would
have been far less hellish than the one you ask me to commit."
The old man bowed his head upon his hands. "You will not help me," he
groaned.
The doctor rose and walked the floor. "No, sir," he said, "I will not
stain my soul with murder for you or any other man." He went to the
window and stood looking out upon the street below. Presently he said,
"Mr. Stirling, will you come here a minute?" The old man rose and went.
"Do you see that little boy skipping along down there?"
"Yes, I see him."
"If I should go down these stairs, seize him and dash his brains out
against that building, what would you think of me?"
"I'd think you were a devil."
"Yet he would have a chance for his life. He could cry out, or the
passersby might see me and interpose, while that you ask me to destroy
is--"
"There's one thing I'll do," said the old man fiercely. "I'll kill Ben
Morely before this day is over!" He seized his hat and started toward
the door.
"Wait a minute!" said the doctor quickly. "It's Ben Morely is it? I know
him. I would not have thought him capable of this."
"He's been coming to see Mary steady for more than a year and they were
to have been married three months ago but they quarreled and Mary told
me last night that he was going away the last of this week. She is as
good and sweet a girl as ever lived. She never kept company with anybody
else and she thought the world of him. The damned villain has got around
her with his honey words and now he proposes to leave her to face it
alone. But I'll kill him as sure as the sun shines."
"Sit down," said the doctor, laying a hand on the excited man's arm and
forcing him into a chair.
"Let me tell you what to do. Young Morely's father is a good and
sensible man and will take the right view of it. Go straight to him and
tell him all about it and my word for it, he will see that they are
married right away. He is able to help them along and will make it to
his son's advantage to stay here rather than go away. He will advise him
right. Have no fear." The old man wrung the doctor's hand in silence and
went out.
Several days later the doctor was looking over the papers published in
the town and read in the list of marriage licenses the names, "Benjamin
Morely, aged twenty-four, Mary Stirling, aged eighteen."
And that is why the scene in the farmhouse this summer night had sent
him back into the past, for it was the home of Benjamin and Mary Morely,
and it was a happy home. These two lives had come together and flowed on
in such harmony and helpfulness and rectitude before the world that the
stain had been wiped out. For a merciless world can be merciful
sometimes if it will only stop to remember that long ago a compassionate
Voice said, Go and sin no more.
The doctor's reverie came to an end for he had reached his
destination--a large white house standing very close to the road.
"Don't talk to me while you are hitching the horse," Mary whispered,
"then they won't know there is anyone with you. I don't want to go in--I
want to see the moon come up."
The doctor took his case and went inside. Mary sat in the buggy and
listened. The neighing of a horse far down the road and the barking of a
dog in the distance were the only sounds she heard. How still and cool
it was after the heat of the day. A wandering breeze brought the sweet
perfume of dewy clover fields. She looked across the intervening knoll
to the east. The tree that crowned its summit stood outlined against the
brightening sky. She was sitting very near the open kitchen window and
now saw the family taking their places around the supper table. She felt
a little uncomfortable and as if she were trespassing on their privacy.
But they did not know of her proximity and she could only sit still in
the friendly cover of the darkness. How good the ham smelled and the
potatoes and the coffee.
A pretty home-scene!
The father at the head of the table, the mother opposite with four
sturdy boys between them, two on each side. The father looked around the
board. Stillness settled down upon them, and then he bowed his head. The
mother, too, bowed her head. The boys looked down.
"Our heavenly Father, we thank Thee for these evening blessings--" the
boys looked up and four forks started simultaneously for the meat
platter. Every fork impaled its slice. Mary gasped. She crammed her
handkerchief into her mouth to shut off the laughter that almost shouted
itself before she could stop it.
The oldest boy, a burly fellow of fifteen, looked astonished and then
sheepish. The other three looked defiance at him. Each sat erect in
perfect silence and held his slice to the platter with a firm hand.
Mary, almost suffocating with laughter which _must_ be suppressed,
watched anxiously for the denouement. The blessing went on. The boys
evidently knew all its stages. As it advanced there was a tightening of
the tension and at the welcome "amen" there was a grand rake-off.
At the commotion of the sudden swipe the father and mother looked up in
amazement.
"Boys, boys! what do you mean!" exclaimed the mother.
"We got even with Mr. Jake that time." It was the second boy who spoke.
"We got _ahead_ of him," said the third. "He didn't get the biggest
piece this time."
"No, _I_ got it myself," said the fourth.
"Well, I'm scandalized," said the mother, looking across the table at
her husband.
"Well, Mother, I'll tell you how it was," said the second boy. "Last
night I looked up before Father was through with the blessing and I saw
Jake with his fork in the biggest piece of ham. You and Father didn't
notice and so he was _it_. I'll bet he's been at it a good while, too."
"I've not, either," said the accused.
"I told Bob and Jim about it and we concluded _we'd_ take a hand in it
tonight."
"Well, let this be the last of it," said the father with mild sternness.
"We'll try to have ham enough for all of you without sneaking it. If
not, Jacob can have his mother's share and mine."
The trio of boys grinned triumphantly at the discomfited Jake, then, the
little flurry over, all fell to eating with a will.
The doctor's voice came to Mary from the room of the patient.
"You're worth a dozen dead women yet," it said. Then a high pitched
woman's voice, "I'll tell you what Mary Ann says she thinks about it."
"Has she been here today?" If Mary Ann had been there the unfavorable
condition of the patient was explained.
"Yes, she just went away. She says she believes you're just keepin'
Ellen down so you can get a big bill out of her."
The doctor was fixing up powders and went placidly on till he got
through, then he said "Mary Ann has a better opinion of me than I
thought she had. It takes a mighty good doctor to do that. That's a very
old song but there are a few people in the world that like to sing it
yet. They don't know that there isn't a doctor in the world that knows
enough to do a thing like that even if he wanted to. Nature would beat
him every time if they gave her a chance."
Mary heard the doctor give his instructions and then he came out. As
they drove off she asked, "You came pretty near catching a tartar,
didn't you?"
"Oh, that one is all right. It's her sister that's always raising the
devil."
"Look! isn't she lovely, John?"
"Isn't who lovely?" asked the doctor, looking back at the house in some
surprise.
"The gentle Shepherdess of Night," Mary answered, her eyes on the moon
just rising over the distant treetops.
"She's getting ready to 'lead her flocks through the fields of blue.'"
"How very poetical we are."
"Only an echo from a little song I used to sing when I was a little
girl."
"Get up, my steeds," urged the doctor, "we must be getting back"; and
they sped swiftly homeward through the soft summer night.
CHAPTER VIII.
Ting-a-ling-ling-ling. Ting-a-ling-ling-ling. Ting-a-ling-ling-ling.
"Hello."
"Is this the doctor's office?"
"This is his residence."
"Pshaw! I wanted his _office_."
"The doctor 'phoned me about ten minutes ago that he would be out for
half an hour and asked me to answer the 'phone in his absence," Mary
explained, pleasantly.
"Oh," said the voice, somewhat mollified, "I'll just call him up when he
gets back. You say he'll be back in half an hour?"
"In about that time."
She went back to her work, which happened to be upstairs this morning,
leaving the doors ajar behind her that she might hear the 'phone. In two
minutes she was summoned down.
"What is it?"
"Is this the doctor's office?"
"No, the residence."
"I rang for the office, sorry to have troubled you, Mrs. Blank," said a
man's voice.
"We are connected and when the doctor is out he expects me to be
bell-boy," said Mary, recognizing the voice.
"I see. Will you please tell the doctor when he comes that my little boy
is sick this morning and I want him to come down. Will he be back soon?"
"In a few minutes, I think."
She sat down by the fire. No use to go back upstairs till she had
delivered the message. This was a pleasing contrast to the other; Mr.
Owen had volunteered his message as if she really had a right to know
and deliver it.
Ting-a-ling-ling-ling. Ting-a-ling-ling-ling. Mary felt reluctant to
answer it--it sounded so like the first. And it was not the house call
this time, but two rings which undeniably meant the office. But she must
be true to the trust reposed in her. She went to the 'phone and softly
taking down the receiver, listened; perhaps the doctor had got back and
would answer it himself. Fervently she hoped so. But there was only
silence at her ear, and the ever present far-off clack of attenuated
voices. The silence seemed to bristle. But there was nothing for our
listener to do but thrust herself into it.
"Hello," she said, very gently.
"O, I've got _you_ again, have I! I _know_ I rung the office this time,
for I looked in the book to see. How does it happen I get the house?"
Ill temper was manifest in every word.
"The office and residence are connected," explained Mary, patiently,
"and when the 'phone rings while the doctor is out, he asks me to answer
it for him."
"I don't see what good _that_ does."
"It doesn't do any good when people do not care to leave a message,"
said Mary quietly.
"Well, I'd ruther deliver my message to _him_."
"Certainly. And I would much rather you would. I can at least say about
what time he expects to return."
"You said awhile ago he'd be back in half an hour and he's not back
_yet_."
The doctor's wife knew that she was held responsible for the delay. She
smiled and glanced at the clock.
"It is just three minutes past the half hour," she said.
"Well, we're in an awful hurry for him. I'll ring agin d'reckly."
In five minutes a ring came again. Surely he would be there now, thought
his wife, but she must go to the 'phone. She listened. Silence. Then the
bell pealed sharply forth again. She decided to change her tactics and
put the other woman on the defensive:
"Well!" she said impatiently, "I'm _very_ sorry to have to answer you
again but--"
"Is the doctor there?" asked a sweet, new voice. "Pardon me for
interrupting you, but I'm very anxious."
"He will be at the office in just a few minutes," Mary answered, very
gently indeed. She realized now that one cannot "monkey" with the
telephone.
"Will you please tell him to come at once?" and she gave the street and
number.
"I shall send him at once."
"Thank you, good-bye."
Before Mary could seat herself, the expected ring came in earnest. She
answered it meekly.
"O, good gracious! hain't he got there yet--?"
"Not yet," said Mary, offering nothing further.
"Well, I've jist _got_ to have a doctor. I'll git some one else." The
threat in the tone made our listener smile.
"I think it would be a good thing to do," she said.
A pause. Then a voice with softening accents.
"But I'd lots ruther have Dr. Blank." No reply.
"Are ye there yit, Mrs. Blank?"
"Yes. I am here."
"He'll surely be back in a little bit now, won't he?"
"I think so."
"Won't _you_ tell 'im to come down to Sairey Tucker's? I'm her sister
and she's bad sick."
"If you will tell me where you live I will send him."
"He knows--he's been here."
"Very well," and she rang off.
With three messages hanging over her head and her conscience, she could
not go upstairs to her work. She must dawdle about at this or that 'till
the doctor returned. After awhile she went to the 'phone and called the
office. No reply. How she longed to deliver those messages. She dreaded
any more calls from the waiting ones. She waited a few minutes then rang
again. Thank fortune! Her husband's response is in her ear, the messages
are delivered and she goes singing up the stairs.
* * * * *
Ting-a-ling-ling-ling-ling-ling.
It was the telephone on the Doctor's office table and a tall young
fellow was ringing it. When he got the number and asked, "Is this you,
Fanny?" his face took on an expression good to see. It was Fanny, and he
settled back on one elbow and asked, "What you doing, Fanny?"
"Nothing, just now. What _you_ doing?"
"Something a good deal better than that."
"What is it?"
"It's talking to _you_."
"Oh!"
"Is that all you have to say about it?" his voice was growing tender.
"Now, Tom, don't go to making love to me over the 'phone."
"How can I help it, sweetheart?"
"Where are you, anyway?"
"I'm in Dr. Blank's office."
"Good gracious! is _he_ there? I'll ring off--good-bye."
"Wait! Fanny--Fanny!"
Fanny was waiting, but how could a mere man know that. He rang the
number again with vehemence.
"Now, Tom Laurence, I want you to quit going into people's offices and
talking to me this way."
"Don't you think my way is nicer than yours--huh?"
The circumflexes were irresistible.
"Well, tell me, Tom, is Dr. Blank there?"
"No, honey. He's away in the back room busy with another patient. He
can't hear."
"_Another_ patient? Why, Tom, you're not _sick_, are you--huh?"
Fanny's circumflexes were quite as circumflexible as Tom's and a thrill
went down the young giant's spine.
"No, but I wish I was!"
At this juncture the man who could not hear came in with a face as grave
and non-committal as the Sphinx, and the young man asked through the
'phone in brisk, cheery tones, "How are you this morning?" then added in
a whisper, "He's here now."
"Is he? Don't talk foolish then. Why, I'm not very well."
"What's the matter?"
"I burned my eye."
"Burned your eye! Confound it! How did you _do_ it?"
"With a curling iron."
"Throw the darned thing away." He turned from the telephone and said,
"Doctor, a young lady has burned her eye. I want you to go out there
right away."
"Where shall I go?" asked the grave doctor.
"I guess you know," and he grinned.
"All right. I'll go pretty soon."
"Don't be too long. Charge it to me."
"Fanny," he said, turning back to the 'phone, but Fanny had gone.
And soon with a smile that had memories in it the doctor took his case
and left the office, the young man at his side.
* * * * *
Ting-a-ling-ling-ling-ling-ling.
Mary, from the living room, heard her husband's voice:
"What is it?"
"Yes."
"They won't? O, I suppose so if nobody else will. I'll be up there in a
little bit." He muttered something, took his hat and went.
When he came back, he said, "This time I had to help the dead."
"To help the dead!" exclaimed Mary.
"Yes. To help a dead woman into her coffin. Everybody was afraid to
touch her."
"Why?"
"The report got out that she died of smallpox. I only saw her once and
could not be sure, but to be on the safe side I insisted that every
precaution be taken--hence the scare."
"But how could you lift the body without help?"
"Oh, I managed it somehow. Just the same I'd rather minister to the
living," said John, to which Mary gave vigorous assent.
* * * * *
"Old Mr. Vintner has just been 'phoning for you in a most imperious
way," announced Mary as the doctor came in at the door.
"Yes, old skinflint! The maid at his house is very sick and he's so
afraid they'll have to take care of her that he's determined to send her
home when she can't go. She has pneumonia. She lives miles out in the
country--"
Ting-a-ling-ling-ling-ling.
"Yes."
"Now see here, Vintner. Listen to me."
"Yes, I know. But a man's got to be _human_. I tell you you can't send
her out in this cold. It's outrageous to--"
"Yes, I know all that, too. But it won't be long--the crisis will come
in a day or two now and--"
"Damn it! Listen. Now stop that and listen. Don't you attempt it! That
girl will be to drag off if you do, I tell you--"
"All right then. That sounds more like it," and he hung up the receiver.
Mary looked up. "You are not very elegant in your discourse at times,
John, but I'm glad you beat," she said.
* * * * *
One evening the doctor came in and walked hurriedly into the
dining-room. As he was passing the telephone it rang sharply in his ear.
"What is it?" he asked, hastily putting up the receiver.
An agitated voice said, "Oh, Doctor, I've just given my little girl a
teaspoonful of carbolic acid! Quick! What must I do!"
"Give her some whiskey at once; then a teaspoonful of mustard in hot
water. I'll be right down," and turning he went swiftly out. When he
came back an hour or two later he said: "The mother got the wrong
bottle. A very few minutes would have done the work. The telephone saved
the child's life. This is a glorious age in which we are living, Mary."
"And to think that some little children playing with tin cans with a
string stretched between them, gave to the world its first telephone
message."
"Yes, I've heard that. It may or may not be true. Now let's have
supper."
"Supper awaits Mr. Non-Committal-Here-As-Ever," said Mary as she laid
her arm in her husband's and they went toward the dining-room together.
* * * * *
One evening the doctor and Mary sat chatting with a neighbor who had
dropped in.
"I want to use your 'phone a minute, please," said a voice.
"Very well," said Mary, and Mrs. X. stepped in, nodded to the trio,
walked to the telephone as one quite accustomed, and rang.
"I want Dr. Brown's office," she said. In a minute came the hello.
"Is this Dr. Brown? My little boy is sick. I want you to come out to see
him this evening. This is Mrs. X. Will you be right out?"
"All right. Good-bye." And she departed.
The eyes of the visitor twinkled. "Our neighbor hath need of two great
blessings," she said, "a telephone and a sense of humor." Mary laughed
merrily, "O, we're so used to it we paid no attention," she said, "but I
suppose it did strike you as rather funny."
"It's a heap better than it used to be when we didn't have telephones,"
said the doctor, with the hearty laugh that had helped many a downcast
man and woman to look on the bright side.
"When I was a young fellow and first hung up my shingle it was a
surprising thing--the number of people who could get along without me. I
used to long for some poor fellow to put his head in at the door and say
he needed me. At last one dark, rainy night came the quick, importunate
knock of someone after a doctor. No mistaking that knock. I opened the
door and an elderly woman who lived near me, asked breathlessly, 'Mr.
Blank, will you do me a great favor?'
'Certainly,' I answered promptly.
'My husband is very sick and I came to see if you would go down and ask
Dr. Smithson to come and see him.' I swallowed my astonishment and
wrath, put on my rubber coat and went for the doctor."
"But she had the grace to come in next day," said Mary, "and tell me in
much confusion that she was greatly embarrassed and ashamed. It had not
entered her head until that morning that my husband was a physician."
"You see," put in the doctor, "she had not taken me seriously; in fact
had not taken me at all."
"Tell us about the old man who had you come in to see if he needed a
doctor," said Mary. The doctor smiled, "_That_ was when I didn't count,
too," he said.
"This old fellow got sick one day and wanted to send for old Dr. Brown,
but being of a thrifty turn of mind he didn't want to unless he had to.
He knew me pretty well so he sent for me to come and see if he _needed_
a doctor. If I thought he did he'd send for Brown. I chatted with him
awhile and he felt better. Next day he sent word to me again that he
wished I'd stop as I went by and I did. This kept up several days and he
got better and better, and finally got well _without_ any doctor, as he
said."
The visitor laughed, "You doctors could unfold many a tale--"
"If the telephone would permit," said Mary, as the doctor answered the
old summons, took his hat and left.
* * * * *
"John," said Mary one day, "I wish you would disconnect the house from
the office."
"No! You're a lot of help to me," protested the doctor.
"Well, I heard someone wrangling with central today because the house
answered when it was the office that was wanted." She laughed. "I know
there are people who fancy the doctor's wife enjoying to the utmost her
'sweet privilege' of answering the 'phone in her husband's absence.
Poor, innocent souls! If they could only know the deadly weariness of it
all--but they can't."
"Why, I didn't know you felt quite that way about it, Mary. I suppose I
can disconnect it but--"
"But you don't see how you can? Never mind, then. We'll go on, and some
sweet day you'll retire from practice. Then hully-gee! won't I be free!
You didn't choose the right sort of helpmeet, John. You surely could
have selected one who would enjoy thrusting herself into the reluctant
confidences of people far more than this one."
"I'm resigned to my lot," laughed John, as he kissed his wife and
departed.
* * * * *
Ting-a-ling-ling-ling. Ting-a-ling-ling-ling.
"Is this you, Doctor?"
"Yes."
"What am I ever to do with Jane?"
"Keep her in bed! That's what to do with her."
"Well, I've got a mighty hard job. She's feeling so much better, she
just _will_ get up."
"Keep her down for awhile yet."
"Well, maybe I can today, but I won't answer for tomorrow. She says she
feels like she can jump over the house."
"She can't, though."
Laughter. "I'll do the best I can, Doctor, but that won't be much.
Keeping her in bed is easier said than done," and the doctor grinned a
very ready assent as he hung up the receiver.
* * * * *
The doctor's family was seated at dinner. Ting-a-ling-ling-ling. John
rose, napkin in hand, and went while the clatter of knives and forks
instantly ceased.
"Yes."
"Why didn't you do as I told you, yesterday?"
"I _told_ you what to do."
"Well, did you put them in hot water?"
"Then do it. Do it right away. Have the water _hot_, now."
He came back and went on with his dinner. Mary admitted to herself a
little curiosity as to what was to be put into hot water. In a few
minutes the dinner was finished and the doctor was gone.
"I bet I know what that was," spoke up the small boy.
"What?" asked his sister.
"Diphtheria clothes. There's a family in town that's got the
diphtheria."
Mary was relieved--not that there should be diphtheria in town, but that
the answer for which her mind was vaguely groping had probably been
found.
* * * * *
Ting-a-ling-ling-ling. When the doctor had answered the summons he told
Mary he would have to go down to a little house at the edge of town
about a mile away. When he came back an hour later he sat down before
the fire with his wife. "I remember a night nineteen years ago when I
was called to that house--a little boy was born. I used to see the
little fellow occasionally as he grew up and pity him because he had no
show at all. Tonight I saw him, a great strapping fellow with a good
position and no bad habits. He'll make it all right now."
The doctor paused for a moment, then went on. "They didn't pay me then.
I remember that. I mentioned it tonight in the young fellow's presence."
"John, you surely didn't!"
"Yes, I did. His mother said she guessed Jake could pay the bill
himself."
Mary looked at this husband of hers with a quizzical smile.
"Doesn't it strike you that you are going pretty far back for your
bill?"
"There's no good reason why this boy should not pay the bill if he wants
to."
"No, I suppose not. But I don't believe he was so keen to get into the
world as all that."
"Well, it wouldn't surprise me much if that young fellow should come
into my office one of these days and offer to settle that old score now
that he knows about it."
"Don't you take it if he does!" and Mary left the room quite unconscious
that her pronoun was without an antecedent.
* * * * *
Ting-a-ling-ling-ling-ling-ling.
"Is this you, Doctor?"
"It is."
"I expect you will have to come out to our house."
"Who is it?"
"This is Mary Milton."
"What's the matter out there, Mrs. Milton?"
"Polly's gone and hurt her shoulder. I guess she run it into the
ground."
"Was she thrown from a horse or a vehicle?"
"No."
"Then how could she run it into the ground?"
"Polly Milton can run _everything_ into the ground!" and the tone was
exasperation itself. "I come purty near havin' to send for you
yesterday, but I managed to get 'er out."
"Out of _what_?"
"The clothes-wringer. She caught her stomach fast between the rollers
and nearly took a piece out of it. Nobody wanted her to turn it but she
would do it."
"Well, what has she done _today_?" asked the doctor, getting impatient.
"I'm plum ashamed to tell ye. She was a-playin' leap-frog."
"Good! I'd like to play it myself once more."
"I thought you'd be scandalized. Some of the girls come over to see 'er
and the first thing I knowed they was out in the yard playin' leap-frog
like a passel o' boys."
"That's good for 'em," announced the doctor.
"It wasn't very good for Polly."
"The shoulder is probably dislocated. I'll be out in a little while and
we'll soon fix it."
"But a great big girl nearly fourteen years old oughtn't--"
"She's all right. Don't you scold her too much." He laughed as he hung
up the receiver, then ordered his horse brought round and in a few
minutes was on his way to the luckless maiden.
* * * * *
Ting-a-ling-ling-ling--three rings.
"Is this Dr. Blank?"
"Yes."
"Can you come down to James Curtis's right away?"
"Yes--I guess so. What's the matter?"
James Curtis stated the matter and the doctor put up the receiver, went
to the door and looked out.
"Gee-mi-nee! It's as dark as a stack of black cats," he said.
In a little while he was off. He had to go horseback and as the horse he
usually rode was lame he took Billy who was little more than a colt.
Before Mary retired she went to the door and opened it. It was fearfully
dark but John had said it was only a few miles. His faithful steed could
find the way if he could not. John always got through somehow. With this
comforting assurance she went to bed. By and by the 'phone was ringing
and she was springing up and hastening to answer it. To the hurried
inquiry she replied, "He is in the country."
"How soon will he be back?"
She looked at the clock. Nearly three hours since he left home.
"I expected him before this; he will surely be here soon."
A message was left for him to come at once to a certain street and
number, and Mary went back to bed. But she could not sleep. Soon she was
at the 'phone again, asking central to give her the residence of James
Curtis.
"Hello."
"Is this Mr. Curtis?"
"Yes, ma'am."
"Is Dr. Blank there?"
"He was, but he started home about an hour ago. He ought to be there by
this time."
"Thank you," said Mary, reassured. He would be home in a little bit then
and she went back to her pillow.
It was well she could not know that her husband was lost in the woods.
The young horse, not well broken to the roads, had strayed from the
beaten path. The doctor had first become aware of it when his hat was
brushed off by low branches. He dismounted, and holding the bridle on
one arm, got down on hands and knees and began feeling about with both
hands in the blackness. It seemed a fruitless search, but at last he
found it and put it securely on his head. He did not remount, but tried
to find his way back into the path.
After awhile the colt stopped suddenly. He urged it on. Snap! A big
something was hurled through the bushes and landed at the doctor's feet
with a heavy thud. The pommel of the saddle had caught on a grape vine
and the girths had snapped with the strain. John made a few remarks
while he was picking it up and a few more while he was getting it on the
back of the shying colt. But he finally landed it and managed to get it
half-fastened. He stood still, not knowing which way to turn. A dog was
barking somewhere--he would go in that direction. Still keeping the
bridle over his arm he spread his hands before him and slowly moved on.
At last he stopped. He seemed to be getting no nearer to the dog. All at
once, and not a great way off, he saw a fine sight. It was a lighted
doorway with the figure of a man in it. He shouted lustily,
"Bring a lantern out here, my friend, if you please. I guess I'm lost."
"All right," the man shouted back and in a few minutes the lantern was
bobbing along among the trees. "Why, Doctor!" exclaimed James Curtis,
"have you been floundering around all this time in these woods so close
to the house? Why didn't you holler before?"
"There didn't seem to be anything to 'holler' at. Until that door opened
I thought I was in the middle of these woods."
"Your wife just telephoned to know if you were at our house and I told
her you started home an hour ago."
"She'll be uneasy. Put me into the main road, will you, and we'll make
tracks for home."
When he got there and had told Mary about it, she vowed she would not
let him go to the country again when the night was so pitch dark,
realizing as she made it, the futility of her vow. Then she told him of
the message that had come in his absence and straightway sent him out
again into the darkness.
* * * * *
It was midnight. The doctor was snoring so loudly that he had awakened
Mary. Just in time. Ting-a-ling-ling-ling-ling. By hard work she got him
awake. He floundered out and along toward the little tyrant. He reached
it.
"Hello. What is it?"
"O! I got the wrong number."
"Damnation!"
Slumber again. After some time Mary was awakened by her husband's voice
asking, "What is it?"
"It's time for George to take his medicine. We've been having a dispute
about it. I said it was the powder he was to take at two o'clock and he
said it was the medicine in the bottle. Now he's mad and won't take
either."
"It was the powder. Tell him I say for him to take it now."
The answering voice sank to a whisper, but the words came very
distinctly, "I'm afraid he won't do it--he's so stubborn. I wish it was
the bottle medicine because I believe he would take that."
The doctor chuckled. "Give him that," he said. "It won't make a great
deal of difference in this case, and thinking he was in the right will
do him more good than the powder. Good night and report in the morning."
The report in the morning was that George was better!
* * * * *
It was a lovely Sabbath in May. The doctor's wife had been out on the
veranda, looking about her. Everywhere was bloom and beauty, fragrance
and song. Long she sat in silent contemplation of the scene. At last a
drowsiness stole over her and she went in and settled herself for a doze
in the big easy chair.
Soon a tinkling fell upon her drowsy ear.
"Oh! that must have been the telephone. I wonder if it was two rings or
three--I'd better listen," she said with a sigh as she pulled herself
up.
"Is this Dr. Blank?" The voice was faint and indistinct.
"Hello?" said Mary's husband's voice, with the rising inflection.
"Hello?" A more pronounced rise. No answer.
"Hello!" falling inflection. Here Mary interposed.
"It's some lady, Doctor, I heard her."
"Hello!" with a fiercely falling inflection.
"Dr. Blank," said the faint voice, "I forgot how you said to take those
red tablets." Mary caught all the sentence though only the last three
words came distinctly.
"Yes?" Her husband's 'yes' was plainly an interrogation waiting for what
was to follow. She understood. He had heard only the words "those red
tablets." Again she must interpose.
"Doctor, she says she forgot how you told her to take those red
tablets."
"O! Why, take one every--"
Mary hung up the receiver and went back to resume her interrupted nap.
She settled back on the cushions and by and by became oblivious to all
about her. Sweetly she slept for awhile then started up rubbing her
eyes. She went hurriedly to the 'phone and put the receiver to her ear.
Silence.
"Hello?" she said. No answer. Smiling a little foolishly she went back
to her chair. "It isn't surprising that I dreamed it." For a few minutes
she lay looking out into the snow flakes of the cherry blooms. Then came
the bell--three rings.
"I hope it's John asking me to drive to the country," she thought as she
hurried to the 'phone. It was not. It was a woman's voice asking,
"How much of that gargle must I use at a time?"
"Oh dear," thought Mary, "what questions people do ask! When a gargler
is a-gargling, I should think she could _tell_ how much to use."
The doctor evidently thought so too for he answered with quick
impatience, "Aw-enough to _gargle_ with." Then he added, "If it's too
strong weaken it a little."
"How much water must I put in it?" Mary sighed hopelessly and stayed to
hear no more. Again she sank back in her chair hoping fervently that no
more foolish questions were to rouse her from it.
When she was dozing off the bell rang so sharply she was on her feet and
at the 'phone almost before she knew it.
"Doctor, the whole outfit's drunk again down here."
A woman's voice was making the announcement.
"Is that so?" The doctor's voice was calm and undisturbed.
"Yes. The woman's out here in the street just jumpin' up and down. I
think _she's_ about crazy."
"She hasn't far to go."
"Her father's drunk too and so's her husband. Will you come down?"
"No, I don't think I'll come down this time."
"Well, then will you send an officer?"
"No-o--I don't--"
"I wish you _would_."
"Well, I'll try to send someone."
* * * * *
Mary was at last too wide awake to think of dozing. This blot on the
sweet May Sabbath drove away all thought of day dreams. Poor, miserable
human creatures! Poor, long-suffering neighbors, and poor John!
"All sorts of people appeal to him in all sorts of cases, and often in
cases which do not come within a doctor's province at all--he is guide,
counsellor and friend," she thought as she put on her hat and went out
for a walk.
CHAPTER IX.
One Sunday morning at the beginning of August, Mary stood in the
church--as it chanced, in the back row--and sang with her next neighbor
from the same hymn book, John Newton's good old hymn,
"Amazing grace, how sweet the sound
That saved a wretch like me!"
It was the opening hymn and they were in the midst of the third verse.
"Thro' many dangers, toils and snares,
I have already come";
sang Mary.
She did not dream that another danger, toil and snare was approaching
her at that instant from the rear and so her clear soprano rang out
unfaltering on the next line--
"'Tis grace that brought me safe thus far--"
Then a hand was laid upon her shoulder. She turned and started as she
saw her husband's face bending to her. What had happened at home?
"Wouldn't you like to go to the country?" whispered the doctor.
"Why--I don't like to leave church to go," Mary whispered back.
"The carriage is right here at the door."
The next instant she had taken her parasol from behind the hymn-books in
front of her, where she had propped it a few minutes before, with some
misgiving lest it fall to the floor during prayer, and just as the
congregation sang the last line,
"And grace will lead me home,"
she glided from the church by the side of the doctor, thankful that in
the bustle of sitting down the congregation would not notice her
departure. They descended the steps, entered the waiting carriage and
off they sped.
"I feel guilty," said Mary, a little dazed over the swift transfer. The
doctor did not reply. In another minute she turned to him with energy.
"John, what possessed you to come to _the church_?"
"Why, I couldn't get you at home. I drove around there and Mollie said
you had gone to church so I just drove there."
"You ought to have gone without me."
The doctor smiled. "You didn't _have_ to go. But you are better off out
here than sitting in the church." The horse switched his tail over the
reins and the doctor, failing in his effort to release them, gave vent
to a vigorous expletive.
"Yes, I certainly do hear some things out here that I wouldn't be apt to
hear in there," she said. Then the reins being released and serenity
restored, they went on.
"Isn't that a pretty sight?" The doctor nodded his head toward two
little girls in fresh white dresses who stood on the side-walk anxiously
watching his approach. There was earnest interest in the blue eyes and
the black. Near the little girls stood a white-headed toddler of about
two years and by his side a boy seven or eight years old.
"Mr. Blank," called the blue-eyed little girl--all men with or without
titles are _Mr._ to little folks;--the doctor stopped his horse.
"Well, what is it, Mamie?"
"I want you to bring my mamma a baby."
"You do!"
"Yes, sir, a boy baby. Mamie and me wants a little brother," chimed in
the little black-eyed girl.
The boy looked down at the toddler beside him and then at the two little
girls with weary contempt. "You don't know what you're a-gittin' into,"
he said. "If this one hadn't never learned to walk it wouldn't be so
bad, but he jist learns _everything_ and he jist bothers me _all the
time_."
The doctor and Mary laughed with great enjoyment. "Now! what'd I tell
you!" said the boy, as he ran to pick up the toddler who at that instant
fell off the sidewalk. He gave him a vigorous shake as he set him on his
feet and a roar went up. "Don't you _git_ any baby at your house," he
said, warningly.
"Yes, bring us one, Mr. Blank, please do, a little _bit_ of a one," said
Mamie, and the black eyes pleaded too.
"Well, I'll tell you. If you'll be good and do whatever your mamma tells
you, maybe I _will_ find a baby one of these days and if I do I'll bring
it to your house." He drove on.
"If they knew what I know their little hearts would almost burst for
joy. Their father is just as anxious for a boy as they are, too," he
added.
They were soon out in the open country. It was one of those lovely days
which sometimes come at this season of the year which seem to belong to
early autumn; neither too warm nor too cool for comfort. A soft haze lay
upon the landscape and over all the Sunday calm. They turned into a
broad, dusty road. Mary's eyes wandered across the meadow on the right
with its background of woods in the distance. A solitary cow stood
contentedly in the shade of a solitary tree, while far above a vulture
sailed on slumbrous wings.
The old rail fence and the blackberry briars hugging it here and there
in clumps; small clusters of the golden-rod, even now a pale yellow,
which by and by would glorify all the country lanes; the hazel bushes
laden with their delightful promise for the autumn--Mary noted them all.
They passed unchallenged those wayside sentinels, the tall
mullein-stalks. The Venus Looking-Glass nodded its blue head ever so
gently as the brown eyes fell upon it and then they went a little way
ahead to where the blossoms of the elderberry were turning into tiny
globules of green. Mary asked the doctor if he thought the corn in the
field would ever straighten up again. A wind storm had passed over it
and many of the large stalks were almost flat upon the earth. The doctor
answered cheerfully that the sun would pull it up again if Aesop wasn't
a fraud.
After a while they stopped at a big gate opening into a field.
"Hold the reins, please, till I see if I can get the combination of that
gate," and the doctor got out. Mary took a rein in each hand as he
opened the gate. She clucked to the horse and he started.
"Whoa! John, come and get my mite. It's about to slip out of my glove."
The doctor glanced at the coin Mary deposited in his palm.
"They didn't lose much."
"The universal collection coin, my dear. Now open the gate wider and
I'll drive through."
"Don't hit the gate post!" She looked at him with disdain. "I never
drove through a gate in my life that somebody didn't yell, 'Don't hit
the gate post' and yet I never _have_ hit a gate post."
At this retort the doctor had much ado to get the gate fastened and pull
himself into the buggy, and his laughter had hardly subsided before they
drew up to the large farm house in the field. Mary did not go in. In
about twenty minutes the doctor came out. The door-step turned, almost
causing him to fall. "Here's a fine chance for a broken bone and some of
you will get it if you don't fix this step," he growled.
"I'll fix that tomorrow," said the farmer, "but I should think you'd be
the last one to complain about it, Doctor."
"Some people seem to think that doctors and their wives are filled with
mercenary malice," said Mary laughing. "Yesterday I was walking along
with a lady when I stopped to remove a banana skin from the sidewalk.
She said she would think a doctor's wife wouldn't take the trouble to
remove banana skins from the walk."
"I believe in preventive medicine," said the doctor, "and mending broken
steps and removing banana peeling belong to it."
"Do you think it will ever be an established fact?" asked Mary as they
drove away.
"I do indeed. It will be the medicine of the future."
"I'm glad I'm not a woman of the future, then, for I really don't want
to starve to death."
"I have to visit a patient a few miles farther on," said the doctor when
they came out on the highway. Soon they were driving across a knoll and
fields of tasseled corn lay before them. A little farther and they
entered the woods. "Ah, Mary, I would not worry about leaving church.
The groves were God's first temples." After a little he said, "I was
trying to think what Beecher said about trees--it was something like
this: 'Without doubt better trees there might be than even the most
noble and beautiful now. Perhaps God has in his thoughts much better
ones than he has ever planted on this globe. They are reserved for the
glorious land.'"
"See this, John!" and Mary pointed to a group of trees they were
passing, "a ring cut around every one of them!"
"Yes, the fool's idea of things is to go out and kill a tree by the
roadside--often standing where it can't possibly do any harm. How often
in my drives I have seen this and it always makes me mad."
They drove for a while in silence, then Mary said, "Nature seems partial
to gold." She had been noting the Spanish needles and Black-eyed Susans
which starred the dusty roadside and filled the field on the left with
purest yellow, while golden-rod and wild sunflowers bloomed profusely on
all sides.
"Yes, that seems to be the prevailing color in the wild-flowers of this
region."
"That reminds me of something. A few months ago a little girl said to
me, 'Mrs. Blank, don't you think red is God's favorite color?' 'Why,
dear, I don't think I ever thought about it,' I answered, quite
surprised. 'Well, I think he likes _red_ better than any color.' 'Why I
don't know, but when we look around and see the grass and the trees and
the vines growing everywhere, it seems to me that _green_ might be his
favorite color. But what makes you think it is red?' 'Because he put
_blood_ into everybody in the world.' Quite staggered by this reasoning
and making an effort to keep from smiling, I said, 'But we can't see
that. If red is his favorite color why should he put it where it can't
be seen?' The child looked at me in amazement. '_God_ can see it. He can
see clear _through_ anybody.' The little reasoner had vanquished me and
I fled the field."
A little way ahead lay a large snake stretched out across the road.
"The boy that put it there couldn't help it," said the doctor, "it's
born in him. When I was a lad every snake I killed was promptly brought
to the road and stretched across it to scare the passers-by."
"And yet I don't suppose it ever did scare anyone."
"Occasionally a girl or woman uttered a shriek and I felt repaid. I
remember one big girl walking along barefooted; before she knew it she
had set her foot on the cold, slimy thing. The way she yelled and made
the dust fly filled my soul with a frenzy of delight. I rolled over and
over in the weeds by the roadside and yelled too."
A sudden turn in the road brought the doctor and his wife face to face
with a young man and his sweetheart. Mary knew at a glance they were
sweethearts. They were emerging into the highway from a grassy
woods-road which led down to a little church. The young man was leading
two saddled horses.
"Why do you suppose they walk instead of riding?" asked the doctor.
"Hush! they'll hear you. Isn't she pretty?"
The young man assisted his companion to her seat in the saddle. She
started off in one direction, while he sprang on his horse and galloped
away in the other. "Here! you rascal," the doctor called, as he passed,
"why didn't you go all the way with her?"
"I'll go back tonight," the young fellow called back, dashing on at so
mad a pace that the broad rim of his hat stood straight up.
"Do you know him?"
"I know them both."
After another mile our travelers went down one long hill and up another
and stopped at a house on the hilltop where lived the patient. Here,
too, Mary chose to remain in the buggy. A wagon had stopped before a big
gate opening into the barnyard and an old man in it was evidently
waiting for someone. He looked at Mary and she looked at him; but he did
not speak and just as she was about to say good morning, he turned and
looked in another direction. When he finally looked around it seemed to
Mary it would be a little awkward to bid him good morning now, so she
tried to think what to say instead, by way of friendly greeting; it
would be a little embarrassing to sit facing a human being for some time
with not a word to break the constraint. But the more she cudgeled her
brain the farther away flew every idea. She might ask him if he thought
we were going to have a good corn crop, but it was so evident that we
were, since the crop was already made that that remark seemed inane. The
silence was beginning to be oppressive. Her eye wandered over the yard
and she noticed some peach trees near the house with some of the
delicious fruit hanging from the boughs. She remarked pleasantly, "I see
they have some peaches here." Her companion looked at her and said,
"Hey?"
"I said, 'I see they have some peaches here,'" she rejoined, raising her
voice. He curved one hand around his ear and said again, "Hey?"
"O, good gracious," thought Mary, "I wish I had let him alone."
She shrieked this time, "I only said, '_I see they have some peaches
here._'"
When the old man said, "I didn't hear ye yet, mum," she leaned back in
the carriage, fanning herself vigorously, and gave it up. She had
screamed as loud as she intended to scream over so trivial a matter.
Looking toward the house she saw a tall young girl coming down the walk
with something in her hand. She came timidly through the little gate and
handed a plate of peaches up to the lady in the carriage, looking
somewhat frightened as she did so. "I didn't hear ye," she explained,
"but Jim came in and said you was a-wantin' some peaches."
Mary's face was a study. Jim and his sister had not seen the deaf old
man in the wagon, as a low-branched pine stood between the wagon and the
house. And this was the way her politeness was interpreted!
The comicality of the situation was too much. She laughed merrily and
explained things to the tall girl who seemed much relieved.
"I ought to 'a' brought a knife, but I was in such a hurry I forgot it."
Eating peaches with the fuzz on was quite too much for Mary so she said,
"Thank you, but we'll be starting home in a moment, I'll not have time
to eat them. But I am very thirsty, might I have a glass of water?" The
girl went up the walk and disappeared into the house. Mary did so want
her to come out and draw the water, dripping and cool, from the old well
yonder. She came out, went to the well, stooped and filled the glass
from the bucket sitting inside the curb. Mary sighed. The tall girl took
a step. Then, to the watcher's delight, she threw the water out, pulled
the bucket up and emptied it into the trough, and one end of the
creaking well-sweep started downward while the other started upward. The
bucket was on its way to the cool depths and Mary grew thirstier every
second.
The doctor appeared at the door and looked out. Then he came, case in
hand, with swift strides down the walk. The gate banged behind him and
he untied the horse in hot haste, looking savagely at his wife as he did
so.
"I suppose you've asked that girl to bring you a drink."
"Yes, I did. I'm very thirsty."
"You ought to have more sense than to want to drink where people have
typhoid fever."
The girl started down the walk with the brimming glass. The doctor
climbed into the buggy and turned around.
"For pity's sake! what will she think?"
A vigorous cut from the whip and the horse dashed off down the road.
Mary cast a longing, lingering look behind. The girl stood looking after
them with open mouth.
"That girl has had enough today to astonish her out of a year's growth,"
thought Mary as the buggy bumped against a projecting plank and tore
over the bridge at the foot of the hill.
"John, one of the rules of good driving is never to drive fast down
hill." Her spouse answered never a word.
After a little he said, "I didn't mean to be cross, Mary, but I didn't
want you to drink there."
"You should have warned me beforehand, then," she said chillingly.
"I couldn't sit in the buggy and _divine_ there was typhoid fever
there," she continued. "'A woman's intuitions are safe guides' but she
has to have _something_ to go on before she can _have_ intuitions."
"Hadn't you better put your ulster on, dear?" inquired the doctor in
such meaning tones, that Mary turned quickly and looked off across the
fields. A Black-eyed Susan by the roadside caught the smile in her eyes
and nodded its yellow head and smiled mischievously back at her. It was
a feminine flower and they understood each other.
When they had driven three or four miles Mary asked the doctor if there
was any typhoid fever in the house they were approaching.
"How do I know?"
"I thought you might be able to divine whether there is or not."
"We'll suppose there isn't. We'll stop and get a drink," he answered
indulgently. They stopped, Mary took the reins and the doctor went to
reconnoiter.
"Nobody at home and not a vessel of any kind in sight," he announced
coming back. Of course her thirst was now raging.
"Maybe there's a gourd hanging inside the curb. If there is do break it
loose and bring it to me heaping full."
"I looked inside the curb--nothing there."
Here Mary's anxious eyes saw a glass fruit jar turned upside down on a
fence paling. Blessings on the woman who put it there! The doctor filled
and brought it to her. After a long draught she uttered a sigh of rich
content.
"Now," she said, "I'm ready to go home."
CHAPTER X.
Ting-a-ling-ling-ling. Ting-a-ling-ling-ling.
"Hello."
"Is this the doctor?"
"It's one of 'em," said John, recognizing the voice of a patient.
"Well, doctor, the _other_ side of my throat is sore _now_!"
"Is it? Well, I told your husband it might be."
"Why?"
"Why? Well, because I'm running short of coffee and a few things like
that."
A little laugh. "_I_ don't want to keep you in coffee and things like
that."
"Nobody does. But the poor doctors have to live and you must contribute
your share." Laughter.
"All right, Doctor, but I don't want to have to contribute too much."
"Don't be alarmed about your throat, Mrs. Channing. When I looked at it
yesterday, I saw indications that the other side might be affected, but
it will soon be well."
"That sounds better. Thank you, good-bye." When he came back to the
table his wife said, "John, I shouldn't think you'd say things like that
to people."
"Why?"
"Well, they might believe 'em." The doctor laughed, swallowed his cup of
tea and departed.
Ting-a-ling-ling-ling. Three times.
"Hello."
"Is Dr. Blank at home?"
"He has just this minute left for the office. 'Phone him there in two
minutes and you will get him."
Mary went back, took two bites and when the third was suspended on her
fork the 'phone rang.
"Somebody else," she thought, laying the fork down and rising.
"Oh! I've got you again, Mrs. Blank. You said to ring in two minutes and
I'd get the doctor."
"But you didn't wait _one_ minute."
"It seemed lots longer. All right, I'll wait."
"People expect a doctor to get there in less than no time," thought
Mary. "John walks so fast I felt safe in telling her to 'phone him in
two minutes."
_Buzz-z-z-z-z_, as if all the machinery of the universe were let loose
in her ear. She had held the receiver till her husband could reach the
office so she might feel assured the anxious one had found him. Yes,
that was his voice.
"Dr. Blank, you're president of the board of health, ain't ye?"
"Yes--guess so."
"This is Jack Johnson's. There's a dead horse down here by our house an'
I want you to come down here an' bury it." Our listener heard the
woman's teeth snap together.
"All right. I'll get a spade and come right along."
"What do they take my husband for," thought Mary.
Buzz-z-z-z at her ear again. Now it was her husband's voice saying,
"Give me number forty-five."
In a minute a gentlemanly voice said, "Hello."
"Is this you, Warner?"
"Yes."
"There's a dead horse down by Jack Johnson's. Go down there and bury
it."
"All right, Doc. I'll be right along."
A burst of laughter from the doctor was echoed by Warner. Mary knew that
Warner was the newly elected alderman and she smiled as she pictured the
new officer leaving his elegant home and going down to perform the
obsequies. Nevertheless her heart leaned toward Jack Johnson's wife, for
it was plain to be seen that neither the new president of the board of
health nor the new alderman had a realizing sense of his duties.
Half an hour later three rings sounded.
"Is this Dr. Blank's office?"
"No, his residence."
"Well, I see by the paper he's on the board of health and we want this
manure-pile taken away from here."
"Please 'phone your complaints to the doctor," said Mary, calmly
replacing the receiver and shutting off the flood.
"John's existence will be made miserable by this new honor thrust upon
him," she thought.
When he came home that evening she asked if the second complainant had
found him.
"Yes, she found me all right."
"They're going to make day hideous and night lamented, aren't they?"
"O, no. I'll just have a little fun and then send someone to look after
their complaints."
Just before bed-time the doctor was called to the 'phone.
"Doctor, this is the nurse at the hotel. What had I better do with this
Polish girl's hand?"
"Doesn't it look all right?"
"Yes, it's doing fine."
"Just let it alone, then."
"She won't be satisfied. She thinks we ought to be doing something to
it. And I've got to do something or she'll go off upstairs and wash it
in dirty water."
"Tell her not to do anything of the kind."
"She can't understand a word I say and I don't know what to do with her.
She's had the bandage off once already."
"The devil she has! Well, then you'll have to unwrap it, I guess, and
pretend to do something. But it would be better to let it alone."
"I know that."
"How is the other patient tonight?"
"Doing fine, Doctor."
"Good! Good-bye."
* * * * *
There was a spacious, airy, upper chamber opening out on a balcony at
the doctor's house which the doctor and Mary claimed for theirs. Not
now; O no! But in the beautiful golden sometime when the telephone
ceased from troubling and the weary ones might rest. This meant when the
doctor should retire from night practice. Until that happy time they
occupied a smaller room on the first floor as it was near the telephone.
Mary had steadfastly refused to have the privacy of her upper rooms
invaded by the tyrant.
One warm summer night when bed-time came she made the announcement that
she was going upstairs to sleep in the big room.
"But what if I should be called out in the night?" asked her husband,
with protest in his voice.
"Then I'd be safer up there than down here," said Mary, calmly.
"But I mean you couldn't hear the 'phone."
"That is a consummation devoutly to be wished."
"Now don't go off up there," expostulated John. "You always hear it and
I sort of depend on you to get me awake."
"Exactly. But it's a good thing for a man to depend on himself once in
awhile. I was awake so often last night that I'm too tired and sleepy to
argue. But I'm going. Good night."
"Thunder!"
"It doesn't ring _every_ night," said Mary, comfortingly from the
landing. "Let us retire in the fond belief that curfew will not ring
tonight."
When she retired she fell at once into deep sleep. For two hours she
slept sweetly on. Then she was instantly aroused. The figure of a man
stood by her side. In the moonlight she saw him plainly, clad in black.
Her heart was coming up into her throat when a voice said,
"Mary, I have to go two miles into the country."
"Why didn't you call me, John, instead of standing there and scaring me
to death?"
"I did call you but I couldn't get you awake."
"Then you ought to have let me be. If a woman hasn't a right to a
night's sleep once in awhile what _is_ she entitled to?"
This petulance was unusual with his wife. "Well, come on down now,
Mary," he said, kindly.
"I'm not going down there this night."
"But you can't hear the 'phone up here and I'm expecting a message any
minute that must be answered."
"I'll--hear--that--'phone," said Mary. "I'll sleep with one ear and one
eye open."
"Have it your own way," said the doctor as he started down the stairs.
"I intend to. But when I tell you I'll watch the 'phone, John, you know
I'll do it."
He was gone and she lay wide awake. It seemed very hard to be ruthlessly
pulled from a sleep so deep and delicious and so much needed.
By and by her eye-lids began to feel heavy and her thoughts went
wandering into queer places. "This won't do," she said aloud, sitting up
in bed. Then she rose and went out on to the balcony. Seating herself in
an arm chair, she looked about her on the silvery loveliness. The
cricket's chirr and the occasional affirmations of the katy-did were the
only sounds she heard. "I didn't say you didn't. Don't be so spiteful
about it."
The moon, shining through the branches of the big oak tree made
faintly-flickering shadows at her feet. The white hammock, stirring
occasionally as a breeze touched it, invited her. She went over to it
and lay for many minutes looking up, noting how fast the moon glided
from one branch of the tree to another. Now it neared the trunk. Now a
slice was cut off its western rim. Now it was only a half moon--"a
bweak-moon on the sky," as her little boy had called it. Now there was a
total eclipse. When it began peeping out on the other side of the trunk
our watcher's dreamful eyes took no note of it. A dog barked. She sprang
up and seated herself in the chair again. She dare not trust herself to
the hammock. It was too seductive and too delightful. So she sat erect
and waited for the ring which might not come but which must be watched
for just the same. Her promise had gone forth. Far up the street she
heard horses' hoofs--it must be John returning. The buggy-top shining in
the moonlight came into view. No, it was a white horse. Her vigil was
not yet ended. A quarter of an hour later she discerned a figure far
down the walk. She followed it with her eyes. It moved swiftly on. Would
it turn at the corner and come up toward their house? Yes, it was
turning. Then it turned into the yard. It was John. She went forward and
leaning over the railing called down to him, "A good chance to play
Romeo now, John." John only grunted--after the manner of husbands.
"Nobody rang. I'm going to bed again. Good night--I mean good morning."
* * * * *
The next night was hotter than ever and Mary made up her mind she would
sleep up in the hammock. She had had a delicious taste of it which made
her wish for more. To avoid useless discussion she would wait till John
retired and was asleep, then she would quietly steal away. But when this
was accomplished and she had settled herself comfortably to sleep she
found herself wide awake. She closed her eyes and gently wooed slumber,
but it came not. Ah, now she knew! The night before she had shaken off
all responsibility for the 'phone. Therefore she could sleep. Tonight
her husband lay unconscious of her absence and the burden of it was upon
her shoulders again. Well, she must try to sleep anyway, this was too
good a chance to lose. She fell asleep. After awhile dinner was ready.
Mollie had rung the little bell for the boys. Now she was ringing it
again. Where can the boys have got to? Ting-a-ling-ling-ling.
Ting-a-ling-ling-ling. Ting-a-ling-ling-ling. Mary sat up in the hammock
and rubbed her eyes.
"Oh!" she sprang out and rushed to the stairs. "Doctor!"
"John!" The snores continued. Ting-a-ling-ling-ling-ling-ling!
"Oh, dear!" gasped Mary, hurrying down as fast as her feet could take
her. Straight to the 'phone she went. It must be appeased first.
"Hello?"
"Hell-_o_! Where's the doctor?"
"He is very fast asleep."
"I've found that out. Can you get him awake?" Sharp impatience was in
the man's voice.
"Hold the 'phone a minute, please, and I'll rouse him."
She went into the bedroom and calling, "John! John!" shook him soundly
by the shoulders. He sat up in bed with a wild look.
"Go to the 'phone, quick!" commanded Mary.
"Eh?"
"Go to the _'phone_. It's been ringing like fury. Hurry."
At last he was there and his wife knew by his questions and answers that
he would be out for the rest of the night. She crept into bed. After he
was gone she would go upstairs. When he was dressed he came to the door
and peered in.
"That's right, Mary," he said, with such hearty satisfaction in his
tones that she answered cheerfully, "All right--I'll stay this time."
And when he was gone she turned her face from the moonlit window and
slept till morning, oblivious to the thieves and murderers that did not
come.
* * * * *
Ting-a-ling-ling-ling. Ting-a-ling-ling-ling.
"Is the doctor there?"
"He was called out awhile ago; will be back in perhaps twenty minutes."
"This is Mr. Cowan. I only wanted to ask if my wife could have some
lemonade this morning. She is very thirsty and craves it--but I can call
again after awhile."
How discouraging to the feverish, thirsty wife to have her husband come
back and tell her he would 'phone again after awhile. And if, after
waiting, he still failed to find the doctor? Mary knew the Cowans quite
well so she made bold to say, hastily, "I think the doctor would say
_yes_."
"You think he would?" asked Mr. Cowan, hopefully.
"I think he would, but don't let her have too much, of course."
"All right. Thank you, Mrs. Blank."
An uneasy feeling came into Mary's mind and would not depart as she went
about her work. Really, what right had she to prescribe for a sick woman
even so harmless a thing as lemonade. How did she know that it was
harmless. Perhaps in this case there was some combination of symptoms
which would make that very thing the thing the patient ought not to
have.
In about fifteen minutes there came a ring--three. Mary started
guiltily. It sounded like the doctor's ring. Was he going to reprimand
her? But it was the voice of a friend and it surprised Mary with this
question:
"Mrs. Blank, if you were me would you have your daughter operated upon?"
"Operated upon for what?"
"For appendicitis."
"Nettie, let me tell you something: if I had no more sense than to give
you advice on such a question as that, I certainly hope you would have
more sense than to take it. Advice about a thing with no sort of
knowledge of that thing is as worthless as it is common."
"Why--I thought since you are a doctor's wife you would know about it."
"Can you draw up a legal will because you happen to be the wife of a
lawyer?"
"No-o, but--"
"But me no buts," quoth Mary. "We're even now."
"Well, I've heard it said a doctor's wife knows even less than many
others about ills and their remedies because she is so used to depending
on her husband that she never has to think of them herself. I guess I'd
better talk to the doctor. I just thought I'd see what you said first.
Good-bye."
"My skirts are clear of any advice in that direction," thought Mary, her
mind reverting again to the lemonade.
"Nettie couldn't have 'phoned me at a more opportune minute to get the
right answer. But I wonder if John is back. I'll see." She rang.
"Hello."
"Say, John, Mr. Cowan 'phoned awhile ago, and his wife was very thirsty
and craved lemonade and--don't scold--I took the liberty of saying--it's
awful for a thirsty person to have to wait and wait you know--and so I
said I thought _you_ would say she might have it."
"I hope you weren't this long about it," laughed her husband.
"Then it was all right?"
"Certainly." Much relieved Mary hung up the receiver. "What needless
apprehension assails us sometimes," she thought, as she went singing to
her broom.
"Just the same, I won't prescribe very often."
CHAPTER XI.
It was five o'clock in the morning when the doctor heard the call and
made his way to it. His wife was roused too and was a passive listener.
"Yes."
"Yes."
"Down where? I don't understand you."
"On what street?.... Down near Dyre's? I don't know any such family."
Here Mary called out, "Maybe they mean Dye's."
"Dye's? Yes, I know where that is..... Galliver--that's the name is it?
Very well, Mrs. Galliver, I'll be down in a little while.... Yes, just
as soon as I can dress and get there."
He proceeded to clothe himself very deliberately, but years of
repression had taught Mary resignation.
Ting-a-ling-ling-ling. Three rings.
The doctor went with shoe in hand and again his wife was a listener.
"Yes..... Yes..... I'm just getting ready to go to see a patient......
It's a hurry call, is it? All right then, I'll come there first......
Yes, right away."
As he put up the receiver he said to his wife, "Somebody else was trying
to get me then, too, but couldn't make it." Mary thought it well he
couldn't since her husband was only one and indivisible.
"But he will probably try again after a little," she thought, "and John
will be gone and I won't know just where to find him."
Ting-a-ling-ling-ling-ling-ling. Collar in hand the doctor went.
"Yes..... Who is this?.... Come where?.... Jackson street. Right next to
Wilson's mill?.... On which side? I say on which side of Wilson's
mill?.... West? All right, I'll be down there after awhile...... No, not
right away; I have to make two other visits first, but as soon as I can
get there."
When at last he was dressed and his hand was on the door-knob the 'phone
called him back.
"You say I needn't come..... Very well. I'll come if you want me to
though, Mrs. Galliver. I'm just starting now. I have to see another
patient first."--
"Why John," interposed Mary from the bedroom, "She called you first."
"It will be about half an hour before I can get there..... All right,
I'll be there."
Then Mary remembered that No. 2 was the hurry call and was silent. When
the doctor was gone she fell asleep but only for two minutes.
She went to answer the call. "Has the doctor started yet?"
"Yes, he is on his way."
"All right then," and the relief in the tone was a pleasant thing to
hear.
"Now, if I go to sleep again I can feel no security from No. 1 or No. 3
or both." Nevertheless she did go to sleep and neither No. 1 nor No. 3
called her out of it.
* * * * *
"I must be going," said Mary, rising from her chair in a neighbor's
house.
"Have you something special on hand?" asked her neighbor.
"Yes, it's clock-winding day at our house, for one thing."
"Why, how many clocks do you have to wind?" inquired the little old lady
with mild surprise.
"Only one, thank heaven!" ejaculated Mary as she departed.
When she had sped across the yard and entered her own door she threw off
her shawl and made ready to wind the clock. First, she turned off the
gas in the grate so that her skirts would not catch fire. Second, she
brought a chair and set it on the hearth in front of the grate. Third,
she went into the next room and got the big unabridged dictionary,
brought it out and put it on the chair. Fourth, she went back and got
the oldest and thickest Family Bible and the fat Bible Dictionary,
brought them out and deposited them on the unabridged. Fifth, she
mounted the chair. Sixth, she mounted the volumes--which brought her up
to the height she was seeking to attain. Seventh, she wound the clock;
that is, she usually did. Today, when she had inserted the key and
turned it twice round--the 'phone rang. Oh, dear! Thank goodness it
stopped at two rings. She would take it for granted the doctor was in
the office. She wound on. Then she took the key out and inserted it on
the opposite side. A second peal. That settled it. If it were a lawyer's
or a merchant's or any other man's 'phone she could wind the other side
first--but the doctor's is in the imperative mood and the present tense.
She must descend. Slowly and cautiously she did so, went to the 'phone
and put the receiver to her ear.
"Hello, is this Dr. Blank's office?"
"This is his--"
"Hello, what is it?" said her husband's voice. "Now why couldn't he have
come a minute sooner," thought Mary, provoked.
"Doctor," said an agitated voice, "my little boy has swallowed a penny."
"Was it a good one?" inquired the doctor, calmly.
"Why--ye-es," said the voice, broken with a laugh, "guess it was."
"Just let him alone. It will be all right after awhile."
"It was worth getting down to hear so comforting an assurance," said
Mary as she ascended again the chair and the volumes. She finished her
weekly task, then slowly and cautiously descended, carried the big books
back to their places, set the chair in its corner and lighted the gas.
She stood for a moment looking up at this clock. The space over the
mantel-piece was just the place for it and it was only after it had been
firmly anchored to the wall that the thought had arisen, "How can I ever
get up there to wind it?"
She smiled as she thought of a social gathering a few days before, when
a lady had called to her across the room, "Mrs. Blank, tell us that
clock story again." And she had answered:
"It isn't much of a story, but it serves to show the manner in which we
computed the time. One night the doctor woke me up. 'Mary,' he said in a
helpless sort of way, 'It struck _seven_--what _time_ is it?' 'Well--let
me see,' I said. 'If it struck seven it meant to strike three, for it
strikes four ahead of time. And if it meant to strike three it's just a
quarter past two, for it's three quarters of an hour too fast.'"
Ting-a-ling-ling. Ting-a-ling-ling-ling. Ting-a-ling-ling-ling.
Mary recognized her husband's ring. "Yes, what is it John?"
"I'm going out for twenty minutes, watch the 'phone, please."
She laughed in answer to this most superfluous request, then sat her
down near by.
* * * * *
"John, Mrs. B. said a pretty good thing last night."
"That's good."
"I've a notion not to tell you, now that the good thing was about you."
"That's better still. But are good things about me so rare that you made
a note of it?"
"I don't know but what they are," said Mary, reflectively. "There was
Mrs. C., you know, who said she didn't see how in the world Doc Blank's
wife ever lived with him--he was so mean."
"I wonder about that myself, sometimes."
"The way I manage it is to assert myself when it becomes necessary--and
it does. You're a physician to your patients but to me you're a mere
man."
"I feel myself shrivelling. But how about Mrs. B.'s compliment?"
"I was over at the church where a social program of some sort was being
given and 'between acts' everybody was moving about chatting. An elderly
woman near me asked, 'Mrs. Blank, do you know who the Hammell's are?' I
told her that I did not, and she went on, 'I see by the paper that a
member of their family died today, and I thought you, being a doctor's
wife, might know something about it.'
"Mrs. B. spoke up promptly, 'Why, Mrs. Blank wouldn't know anything
about the _dead_ people--her husband gets 'em _well_.'"
The doctor laughed, "And she believes it too," he said.
"No doubt of it. So a compliment like that offsets one of Mrs. C.'s
kind."
"O, no. The C.'s have it by a big majority. Don't you know I have the
reputation of being the meanest man in the county?"
"No, I don't."
"Well, I have. Do you remember that drive we took a week or two ago up
north?"
"That long drive?"
"Yes. When I went in the man who was a stranger to me, said, 'I'll tell
you why I sent for you. I've had two or three doctors out here,
recommended as _good_ doctors, and they haven't done me a darned bit of
good. Yesterday I heard you was the meanest doctor in this county and I
said to myself, "He's the man I want."'"
"I heard you laughing and wondered what it was about. The man's wife
came out to the buggy and talked to me. She said they were strangers and
didn't know anything about the doctors around here--they had thought of
sending down to this town for a doctor but she had spoken to a woman--a
neighbor--and she had said there wasn't _any_ of 'em any account down
there. But her husband kept getting worse so they finally sent for Dr.
Blank and she hoped he'd cure 'im. Are you doing it? I hope so for I
assured her that the physicians of this town are recognized throughout
the State as being men of exceptional ability, and she went in,
comforted."
"Yes, he got better as soon as he struck the road to health," laughed
John. He took out his watch. "Jove! I haven't any time to spare if I
catch that train." For several days he had been taking the train to a
little station some miles out of town, where he would get off and walk a
mile to the home of his patient, make his visit and walk back in time to
catch the train for home.
Just after the doctor left the house the telephone rang twice. His wife
answered it, knowing he had not yet reached the office.
"Is the doctor there?"
"He left the house just a minute ago."
"Well, he's coming down today isn't he?"
"Is this Mrs. Shortridge?"
"Yes."
"Yes, he just said he must make that train."
"He'll go to the office first won't he?"
"Yes, to get his case, I think."
"Will you please telephone him there to bring a roast with him?"
"To bring what?"
"A roast."
Mary was nonplussed. Her husband had the reputation of "roasting" his
patients and their attendants on occasion. Had an occasion arisen now?
"Why, ye-es," she began, uncertainly, when the voice spoke again.
"I mean a roast of beef, Mrs. Blank. I thought as the doctor was coming
he wouldn't mind stopping at the butcher's and bringing me a roast--tell
him a good-sized one."
The receiver clicked. Mary still held hers. Then she rang the office.
"What _is_ it?" Great haste spoke in the voice.
"John, Mrs. Shortridge wants you to bring her a roast of beef when you
go down."
"The devil she does!"
"The market is right on your way. Hurry. Don't miss the train!" She put
up the receiver, then she snatched it and rang again violently.
"_Now_ what!" thundered John's voice.
"She said to get a good-sized one." Standing with the receiver in her
hand and shaking with laughter she heard the office-door shut with a
bang and knew that he was off.
She knew that if he had been going in the buggy he would have been glad
to do Mrs. S.'s bidding. He often carried ice and other needful things
to homes where he visited. Mary pictured her husband picking his way
along a muddy country road, his case in one hand and the "roast" in the
other, and thought within herself, "He'll be in a better mood for a
roast when he arrives than when he started."
* * * * *
Mary was out in the kitchen making jelly. At the critical moment when
the beaded bubbles were "winking at the brim" came the ring. She lifted
the kettle to one side, wiped her hands and went.
"Is this you, Mary?"
"Yes."
"Watch the 'phone a little bit, please. I have to be out about half an
hour."
"I'm always watching the 'phone, John, always, _always_!"
She went back to her jelly. She put it back on the fire, an inert mass
with all the bubbles died out of it. Scarcely had she done so when the
'phone rang--two rings. Surely the doctor had not got beyond hearing
distance. He would answer. But perhaps he had--he was a very swift
walker. The only way to be sure of it was to go to the telephone and
listen. She went hastily back and as she put the receiver to her ear
there came a buzz against it which made her jump.
"Hello," she said.
"I wanted the doctor, Mrs. Blank, do you know where he is?"
"He just 'phoned me that he--" an unmistakable sound arose from the
kitchen stove. The jelly was boiling over! Instinct is older than the
telephone. The receiver dangled in air while Mary rushed madly to the
rescue. "I might have known it," she said to herself, as she pushed the
kettle aside and rushed back to the 'phone.
"I guess they cut us off," said the voice.
"I was just saying," said Mary, "that the doctor 'phoned me a few
minutes ago he would be out for half an hour."
"Will you please tell him when he comes in to call up 83?"
The man goes on his way, relieved of further responsibility in the
matter. It will be a very easy thing for the doctor's wife to call up
her husband and give him the message. Let us see.
When the jelly was done, and Mary had begun to fill the waiting glasses
she thought, "I'd better see if John is back. He may go out again before
I can deliver that message." So she set the kettle on the back of the
stove and went to ascertain if her husband had returned. No answer to
her ring. She had better ring again to be sure of it. No answer. She
went back to the kitchen. When the glasses were all filled and she had
held first one and then another up to get the sunlight through the clear
beautiful redness of them, she began setting them back to cool. The
telephone! She hurried in and rang again to see if John had got back.
Silence. She sighed and hung up the receiver. "I'd like to get it off my
mind." As she started toward the kitchen again the door-bell rang. She
went to open the door, and wonder of wonders--an old friend she had not
seen for years!
"I am passing through town, Mary, and have just three quarters of an
hour till my train goes. Now sit down and _talk_."
And the pair of them did talk, oblivious to everything about them. How
the minutes did fly and the questions too! The 'phone rang in the next
room--two rings. On Mary's accustomed ear it fell unheeded. She talked
on. Again two rings. She did not notice.
"Isn't that your 'phone?" asked the visitor.
"O, _yes_! You knocked it clean out of my head, Alice. Excuse me a
minute," and she vanished.
"Did you give that message to the doctor?"
"He is not back yet."
"I saw him go into the office not ten minutes ago."
"I have 'phoned twice and failed to find him."
"I hoped when I saw him leave the office that he had started down to see
my little boy, but of course he hasn't if he didn't get the message."
"I am sorry. An old friend I had not seen for years came in and of
course it went out of my mind for a few minutes, though I 'phoned twice
before she came. I am sure he will be back in a few minutes and I will
send him right down, Mr. Nelson."
"Why do you do that?" asked her friend, pointedly as she came in. "Why
take upon yourself the responsibility of people's messages being
delivered."
"It _is_ an awful responsibility. I don't know why I do it--so many
people seem to expect it as a matter of course--"
"It's a great deal easier for each person to deliver his own message
than for you to have a half dozen on your mind at once. I wouldn't do
it. You'll be a raving lunatic by the next time I see you."
"At least I'll have ample time in which to become one," laughed Mary.
"I'm going," announced her friend, suddenly rising. "I could spare five
or ten minutes more but if I sit here you'll forget that 'phone again.
But take my advice, Mary, and institute a change in the order of
things."
When she had gone Mary sat for a few minutes lost in thought. Then,
remembering, she sprang up and went to the 'phone. No answer to her
ring. "Dear me! Will I _never_ get that message delivered and off my
mind." Soon a ring came.
"Isn't he back _yet_?"
"I 'phoned about three minutes ago and failed to get him. By the way,
Mr. Nelson, will you just 'phone the doctor at the office, please? That
will be a more direct way to get him as I seem to fail altogether this
morning. I am sure that he can't be gone much longer," she said very
pleasantly and hung up the receiver. The responsibility had been
gracefully shifted and she was free for a while. Other occasions would
arise when she could not be free, but in cases of this kind her friend's
clear insight had helped her out.
* * * * *
Ting-a-ling-ling-ling. Ting-a-ling-ling-ling.
"Hello."
"Is this Dr. Blank?"
"Yes."
"My husband has just started for your office. He says he's going to send
you down. I don't need a doctor. Will you tell him that?"
"I'll tell him you _said_ so."
"Well, I don't. So don't you come!"
"All right. I haven't got time to be bothered with you anyway. The sick
people take my time."
In a few minutes the 'phone rang again.
"Dr. Blank, can you come over to the Woolson Hotel?"
"Right away?"
"Yes, if you can. There's a case here I've treated a little that I'm not
satisfied about."
"All right, Doctor, I'll be there in a few minutes."
When he reached the hotel and had examined the patient he said, "He has
smallpox."
"I began to suspect that."
"Not a bit of doubt of it."
"The hotel is full of people--I'm afraid there'll be a panic."
"We must get him out of here. We'll have to improvise a pest-house at
once. I'll go and see about it."
That evening about an hour after supper the doctor's daughter came
hurriedly into the room where her mother was sitting.
"Mother," she exclaimed, "there's an awful lot of people in the office,
a regular mob and they're as mad as fury."
"What about?" exclaimed her mother, startled.
"They're mad at father for putting the tent for a smallpox patient down
in their neighborhood."
"Is he in the office now?"
"He was there when I first went in but he isn't there just now. Father
wasn't a bit disturbed, but I am. I got out of there. The mayor went
into the office just as I came out."
Uneasy, in spite of herself, Mary waited her husband's return. Ten
o'clock, and he had not come. She went to the 'phone and called the
office. The office man answered.
"Where is the doctor?"
"He was in here a few minutes ago, but there's a big fuss down at the
smallpox tent and I think he's gone down there."
Mary rang off and with nervous haste called the mayor's residence.
"Is this Mr. Felton?"
"Yes."
"This is Mrs. Blank. I am very uneasy about the doctor, Mr. Felton. I
hear he has just started down to the smallpox tent. Won't you please see
that someone goes down at once?"
"Yes, Mrs. Blank. I came from there a little while ago but they're mad
at the doctor and I'll go right back. I'm not going to bed until I know
everything's quieted down."
"And you'll take others with you?" she pleaded, but the mayor was gone.
Again she waited in great anxiety. The tent was too far away for her to
go out into the night in search of him.
Between eleven and twelve o'clock she heard footsteps. She rose and went
to the door. Almost she expected to see her husband brought home on a
stretcher. But there he came, walking with buoyant step. When he came in
he kissed his anxious wife and then broke into a laugh.
"My! how good that sounds! I heard of the mob and have been frightened
out of my wits."
"They've quieted down now. There wasn't a bit of sense in what they
did."
"Well, I don't know that one can really blame them for not wanting
smallpox brought into the neighborhood. Couldn't you have taken the tent
farther out?"
"Yes, if we had had time. But we had a sick man on our hands--he had to
be got out of the hotel and he had to be taken care of right away. He
had to have a nurse. There must be water in the tent and the nurse can't
be running out of a pest-house to get it. Neither can anyone carry it to
such a place. So we couldn't put it beyond the water- and
gas-pipes--there must be heat, too, you know. We have done the very best
we could without more time. The nearest house is fifty yards away and
there's absolutely no danger if the people down there will just get
vaccinated and then keep away from the tent."
"They surely will do that."
"Some of them may. One fool said to me awhile ago when I told them that,
'Oh, yes! we see your game. You want to get a lot of money out of us.'"
"What did you say to that ancient charge," asked Mary, smiling.
"I said, 'My man, I'll pay for the virus, and I'll vaccinate everyone of
you, and everyone in that neighborhood and it won't cost you a cent'."
"Did he look ashamed?"
"I didn't wait to see. I had urgent business out just then."
"Is the patient in the tent now?"
"Yes, all snug and comfortable with a nurse to take care of him. That
was my urgent business. I went into the back room of the office in the
midst of their jabber, slipped out the door, got into the buggy hitched
back there, drove to the hotel and with Dr. Collins' help, got the
patient down the ladder waiting for us, into the buggy, then got the
nurse down the ladder and in, too, then away we drove lickety-cut for
the tent while the mob was away from there. Then I went back to the
office and attended the meeting," added the doctor, laughing heartily.
His wife laughed too, but rather uneasily. "Were they still there when
you got back?"
"Every mother's son of 'em. They didn't stay long though. I advised them
to go home, that the patient was in the tent and would stay there. They
broke for the tent--vowed they'd set fire to it with him in it and I
think they intended to hang _me_," and the doctor laughed again.
"John, don't _ever_ get into such a scrape again. I 'phoned Mr. Felton
and begged him to go down there and take someone with him."
"You did? Well, he came, and it happened there was a member of the State
Board of Health in town who had got on to the racket. He came, too, and
you ought to have heard him read the riot act to those fellows:
"'We've got a sick man here--a stranger, far from his home. You are in
no danger whatever. Every doctor in town has told you so. We're going to
take care of this man _and don't you forget it_. We have the whole State
of Illinois behind us, and if this damned foolishness don't stop right
here, I'll have the militia here in a few hours' time and arrest every
one of you.' That quieted them. They slunk off home and won't bother us
any more."
* * * * *
Three or four days after the above conversation Mary stood at the window
looking out at the storm which was raging. The wind was blowing
fearfully and the rain coming down in torrents. "I do hope John will not
be called to the country today," she thought.
Ting-a-ling-ling-ling--three rings.
"Is this Dr. Blank's office?" asked a feminine voice.
"No, his residence."
"Mrs. Blank, this is the nurse at the smallpox tent. Will you 'phone the
office and tell the doctor it's raining in down here terribly. I'm in a
hurry, must spread things over the patient."
"Very well, I'll 'phone him," and she rang twice. No reply. Again. No
reply. "Too bad he isn't in. I'll have to wait a few minutes."
In five minutes she rang again, but got no reply. In another minute she
was called to the 'phone.
"Didn't you get word to the doctor, Mrs. Blank?" asked a voice, full of
anxiety. "I'm afraid we'll drown before he gets here."
"I have been anxiously watching for him, but he must be visiting a
patient. Hold the 'phone please till I ring again." This time her
husband answered.
"Doctor, here's the nurse at the tent to speak to you." She waited to
hear what he would say.
"Doctor, please come down here and help us. The roof is leaking awfully
and we are about to drown."
"All right, I'll be down after a little."
"Don't wait too long."
Mary's practised ear caught something beginning with a capital D as the
receiver clicked.
"Poor old John," she murmured, "it's awful--the things you have to do."
The doctor got into his rubber coat and set out for his improvised
pest-house.
When he came home Mary asked, "Did you stop the leak?"
"I did. But I had a devil of a time doing it."
"I'm curious to know how you would go about it."
"The roof was double and I had to straighten out and stretch the upper
canvas with the wind blowing it out of my hands and nobody to help me
hold it."
"Was there nobody in sight?"
"That infernal coward of a watchman, but I couldn't get him near the
tent--he's _had_ smallpox, too."
"I should think the nurse could have helped a little, that is if she
knew where to take hold of it, and what to do with it when she got
hold."
"O, she sputtered around some and imagined she was helping."
"Poor thing," said Mary, laughing, "I know just how bewildered she was
with you storming commands at her which she couldn't understand--women
can't."
Ting-a-ling-ling-ling. Ting-a-ling-ling-ling. Ting-a-ling-ling-ling.
The doctor helloed gruffly.
"Is this you, Doc?"
"Looks like it."
"We want ye to come down here an' diagnosis these cases."
"_What_ cases!"
"There's two down here."
"Down _where_?"
"Down here at my house."
"Well, who the devil _are_ you?"
"Bill Masters. We're afraid maybe it's smallpox."
"Yes, _yes_!" snarled the doctor, "every _pimple_ around here for the
next three months will be smallpox."
"Well, we want ye to diagnosis it, Doc."
"All right. I'll 'diagnosis' it the first time I'm down that way--maybe
this evening or tomorrow," and he slammed the receiver up and went to
bed.
* * * * *
One evening the doctor was waiting for the stork at a farmhouse some
miles from home. He concluded to telephone his wife as it might be
several hours before he got in. He rang and put the receiver to his ear:
"Did you put your washin' out today?"
"No, did you?"
"No, I thought it looked too rainy."
"So did I. I hope it'll clear up by mornin'."
"Have you got your baby to sleep yet?"
"Land! yes. He goes to sleep right after supper."
"Mine's not that kind of a kid. He's wider awake than any of us this
minute."
"Got your dress cut out?"
"No, maybe I'll git around to it tomorrow afternoon, if I don't have
forty other things to do."
"Did ye hear about--"
Seeing no chance to get in the doctor retreated. Half an hour later he
rang again. A giggle and a loud girlish voice in his ear asking, "Is
this you, Nettie?"
"This is me."
"Do you know who this is?"
"Course I do."
"Bet ye don't."
"Bet I do."
"Who?"
"It's Mollie, of course."
"You've guessed it. I tried to change my voice so you wouldn't know me."
"What fer?"
"Oh, cat-fur to make kitten breeches."
Mild laughter.
"I heard that you gave Jake the mitten last night."
"Who told ye?"
"Oh, a little bird."
"Say! Who _did_ tell ye?"
"You'll never, never tell if I do?"
The clock near the patiently waiting doctor struck nine quick short
strokes.
"Did you hear that?" asked the first voice, startled.
"Whose clock _is_ that?"
"Johnson's haven't got one like that."
"Miller's haven't neither."
"I'll tell you--it's Gray's--their clock strikes quick like that."
"Then there's somebody at their 'phone listenin'!"
"Goodness! Maybe it's Jake, just like him!"
"Jake Gray, if that's you, you're a mean eavesdroppin' sneak an' that's
what I think of _you_! Good-bye, Nettie." And as the receiver slammed
into its place the doctor shook with laughter.
"This seems to be my opportunity," he thought, then rang and delivered
the message to his wife. Often these dialogues kept him from hearing or
delivering some important message and then he fumed inwardly, but
tonight he had time to spare and to laugh.
* * * * *
After a little the 'phone rang. "It's someone wanting you, Doctor," said
the man of the house who answered it. The doctor went.
"Is this you, Doctor Blank?"
"Yes."
"I want you--"
The doctor heard no more. This was a party line and every receiver on it
came down. A dozen people were listening to find out who wanted the
doctor and what for. All on the line knew that Doctor Blank had been at
the Gray farmhouse for hours. The message being private, there was
silence. The doctor waited a minute then his wrath burst forth.
"Damn it! Hang up your receivers, all you eavesdroppers, so I can get
this message!"
Click, click, click, click, and lots of people mad, but the doctor got
the message.
* * * * *
Ting-a-ling-ling-ling.
"Is this Mrs. Blank?"
"Yes."
"I telephoned the office and couldn't get the doctor so I'll tell you
what I wanted and you can tell him. His patient down here in the
country, Mrs. Miller, is out of powders and she wants him to send some
down by Mrs. Richards, if he can find her."
"Where is Mrs. Richards?"
"She's up there in town somewhere."
"Does she know that the powders are to be sent by her and will she call
at the office?"
"No, I don't think she knows anything about it. Mrs. Miller didn't know
she was out till after she left. That's all," and she was gone.
"All!" echoed Mary.
In a few minutes when she thought her husband had had time to return she
went to the 'phone and told him he must go out and hunt up Mrs.
Richards.
"What for?"
"Because Mrs. Miller wants you to find her and send some powders down by
her."
An explosion came and Mary retired laughing and marvelling to what
strange uses telephones--and doctors--are put.
CHAPTER XII.
It was a lovely morning in late September. The sun almost shone through
the film of light gray clouds which lay serenely over all the heavens.
There was a golden gleam in the atmosphere,
"And a tender touch upon everything
As if Autumn remembered the days of Spring."
The doctor and his wife were keenly alive to the beauty of the day.
After they had driven several miles they stopped before a little brown
house. The doctor said he would like Mary to go in and she followed him
into the low-ceiled room.
"Here, you youngsters, go out into the yard," said the mother of the
children. "There ain't room to turn around when you all get in." They
went. A baby seven or eight months old sat on the floor and stared up at
Mary as she seated herself near it. Two women of the neighborhood sat
solemnly near by. The doctor approached the bed on which a young woman
of eighteen or twenty years was lying.
"My heart hain't beat for five minutes," she said.
"Is that so?" said the doctor, quite calm in the face of an announcement
so startling. "Well, we'll have to start it up again."
"That's the first time she has spoke since yesterday morning," said one
of the solemn women in a low tone to the doctor.
"It didn't hurt her to keep still. She could have spoken if she had
wanted to." The two women looked at each other. "No, she couldn't speak,
Doctor," said one of them.
"Oh, yes she could," replied the doctor with great nonchalance.
"I _couldn't_!" said the patient with much vigor. This was just what he
wanted. He examined her carefully but said not a word.
"How long do you think I'll live?" she asked after a little.
"Well, that's a hard question to answer--but you ought to be good for
forty or fifty years yet."
The patient sniffed contemptuously. "Huh, I guess you don't know it all
if you _are_ a doctor."
"I know enough to know there's mighty little the matter with _you_." He
turned to one of the women. "I would like to see her mother," he said.
The mother had left the room on an errand; the woman rose and went out.
There was a pause which Mary broke by asking the baby's name.
"We think we'll call her Orient."
"Why not Occident?" thought Mary, but she kept still. Not so the doctor.
"_That's_ no name. Give her a good sensible _name_--one she won't be
ashamed of when she's a woman."
Here Mary caught sight of a red string around the baby's neck, and asked
if it was a charm of some sort. The mother took hold of the string and
drew up the charm. "It's a blind hog's tooth," she said simply, "to make
her cut her teeth easy."
The mother of the patient came into the room. "How do you think she is,
Doctor?"
"Oh, she's not so sick as you thought she was, not near."
The mother looked relieved. "She had an awful bad spell last night. Do
you think she won't have any more?"
"No, she won't have any more." The look on the patient's face said
plainly, "We'll see about that." It did not escape the doctor.
"But in case you should see any signs of a spell coming on, and if she
gets so she can't speak again, then you must--but come into the next
room," he said in a low voice.
They went into an adjoining room, the doctor taking care to leave the
door ajar. Then in a voice ostensibly low enough that the patient might
not hear and yet so distinct that she could hear every word, he
delivered his instructions: "Now, if she has any more spells she must be
blistered all the way from her neck down to the end of her spine." The
mother looked terrified. "And if she gets so she can't speak again, it
will be necessary to put a seton through the back of her neck."
"What _is_ a seton?" faltered the woman.
"Oh, it's nothing but a big needle six or eight inches long, threaded
with coarse cord. It must be drawn through the flesh and left there for
a while." Then in a tone so low that only the mother could hear, he
said, "Don't pay much attention to her. She'll never have those spells
unless there is somebody around to see her."
He walked into the other room and took up his hat and case.
"I left some powders on the table," he said to the mother. "You may give
her one just before dinner and another tonight."
"Will it make any difference if she doesn't take it till tonight?"
"Not a bit."
"Pa's gone and I didn't 'low to git any dinner today."
At this announcement Mary heard something between a sigh and a groan and
turning, saw a rosy-cheeked boy in the doorway. There was a look of
resigned despair on his face and Mary smiled sympathetically at him as
she went out. How many lads and lassies could have sympathized with him
too, having been victims to that widespread feeling among housewives
that when "Pa" is gone no dinner need be got and sometimes not much
supper.
As the doctor and his wife started down the walk they heard a voice say,
"Ma, don't you ever send for that smart-aleck doctor agin. I won't
_have_ him." The doctor shook with laughter as he untied the horse.
"They won't need to send for me 'agin.' I like to get hold of a fine
case of hysterics once in a while--it makes things lively."
"The treatment you prescribed was certainly heroic enough," said Mary.
They had driven about a mile, when, in passing a house a young man
signaled the doctor to stop. "Mother has been bleeding at the nose a
good deal," he said, coming down to the gate. "I wish you would stop and
see her. She'll be glad to see you, too, Mrs. Blank."
They were met at the door by a little old woman in a rather short dress
and in rather large ear-rings. Her husband, two grown daughters and
three children sat and stood in the room.
"So you've been bleeding at the nose, Mrs. Haig?" said the doctor,
looking at his patient who now sat down.
"Yes, sir, and it's a-gittin' me down. I've been in bed part of the
day."
"It's been bleedin' off and on for two days and nights," said the
husband.
"Did you try pretty hard to stop it?"
"Yes, sir, I tried everything I ever heerd tell of, and everything the
neighbors wanted me to try, but it didn't do no good."
"Open the door and sit here where I can have a good light to examine
your nose by," the doctor said to the patient. She brought her chair and
the young man opened the door. As he did so there was a mad rush between
the old man and his two daughters for the door opposite.
"Shet that door, quick!" the old man shouted, and it was instantly done.
Mary looked around with frightened eyes. Had some wild beast escaped
from a passing menagerie and was it coming in to devour the household?
There was a swirl of ashes and sparks from the big fireplace.
"This is the blamedest house that ever was built," said Mr. Haig.
"Who built it?" queried the doctor.
"I built it myself and like a derned fool went an' put the fireplace
right between these two outside doors, so if you open one an' the other
happens to be open the fire and ashes just flies."
The doctor took an instrument from his pocket and proceeded with his
examination.
"But there's a house back here on the hill about a mile that beats
this," said the old man.
"That is a queer-looking house," said Mary. "It has no front door at
all."
"No side door, neither. When a feller wants to get in _that_ house
there's just one of three ways: he has to go around and through the
kitchen, or through a winder, or down the chimney."
"If he was little enough he might go through the cat-hole," suggested
the young man, at which they all laughed.
"And what may that be?" asked the mystified Mary.
"It's a square hole cut in the bottom of the door for the cat to go in
and out at. The man that owns the place said he believed in having
things handy."
"Now, let me see your throat," said the doctor. The patient opened her
mouth to such an amazing extent that the doctor said, "No, I will stand
on the outside!" which made Mary ashamed of him, but the old couple
laughed heartily. They had known this doctor a good many years.
"What have you been doing to stop the bleeding?" he asked.
"I've been a-tryin' charms and conjurin', mostly."
Mary saw that there was no smile on her face or on any other face in the
room. She spoke in a sincere and matter-of-fact way. "Old Uncle Peter,
down here a piece, has cured many a case of nose-bleed but he hain't
'peared to help mine."
"How does he go about it?" asked Mary.
"W'y, don't you know nothin' 'bout conjurin'?"
"Nothing at all."
"I thought you bein' a doctor's wife would know things like that."
"I don't believe my husband practises conjuring much."
"Well, Uncle Peter takes the Bible, and opens it, and says some words
over it, and pretty soon the bleedin' stops."
"Which stops it, the Bible or the words?"
"W'y--both I reckon, but the words does the most of it. They're the
charm and nobody knows 'em but him."
"Where did he learn them?"
"His father was a conjurer and when he died he tol' the words to Uncle
Peter an' give the power to him."
"Did he come up here to conjure you?" asked the doctor.
"No, he says he can do it just as well at home."
"He can. But I think we can stop the bleeding without bothering Uncle
Peter any more. I'd like a pair of scissors," he said, meaning to cut
some papers for powders.
"They won't do no good. I've tried 'em."
"What do you think I want with them?"
"I 'lowed you wanted to put 'em under the piller. That'll cure
nose-bleed lots of times. Maybe you don't believe it, but it's so."
"Can Uncle Peter cure other things?" asked Mary.
"He can _that_. My nephew had the chills last year and shook and shook.
At last he went to Uncle Peter an' he cured _him_."
"He shot 'em," said Mr. Haig.
"Yes, he told him to take sixteen shot every mornin' for sixteen days
and by the time he got through he didn't shake a bit."
"By jings! he was so heavy he couldn't," said Mr. Haig, and in the laugh
that followed the doctor and his wife rose to go. A neighboring woman
with a baby in her arms had come in and seated herself near the door. As
he passed out the doctor stopped to inquire, "How's that sore breast?
You haven't been back again."
"It's about well. William found a mole at last and when I put the skin
of it on my breast it cured it. I knowed it would, but when we wanted a
mole there wasn't none to be found, so I had to go and see _you_ about
it."
"I thought it would soon be well. Good for the mole-skin," laughed the
doctor, as they took their leave.
When they had started homeward they looked at each other, the doctor
with a smile in his eyes--he had encountered this sort of thing so often
in his professional life that he was quite accustomed to it. But Mary's
brown eyes were serious. "John," she said, "when will the reign of
ignorance and superstition end?"
"When Time shall be no more, my dear."
"So it seems. Those people, while lacking education, seem to be fairly
intelligent and yet their lives are dominated by things like these."
"Yes, and not only people of fair intelligence but of fair education
too. While they would laugh at what we saw and heard back there they are
holding fast to things equally senseless and ridiculous. Then there are
thoroughly educated and cultured people holding fast to little
superstitions which had their birth in ignorance away back in the past
somewhere. How many people do you know who want to see the new moon over
the left shoulder? And didn't I hear you commanding Jack just the other
day to take the hoe right out of the house and to go out the same door
he came in?"
"O, ye-es, but then _nobody_ wants to have a _hoe_ carried through the
house, John. It's such a bad sign--"
The doctor laughed. "This thing is so widespread there seems to be no
hope of eliminating it entirely though I believe physicians are doing
more than anybody else toward crushing it out."
"Can they reason and argue people out of these things?"
"Not often. Good-natured ridicule is an effective shaft and one I like
to turn upon them sometimes. They get so they don't want to say those
things to me, and so perhaps they get to see after a while that it is
just as well not to say them too often to other people, too."
"Don't drive so fast, John, the day is too glorious."
Yellow butterflies flitted hither and thither down the road; the corn in
the fields was turning brown and out from among it peeped here and there
a pumpkin; the trees in apple orchards were bending low with their rosy
and golden treasures. They passed a pool of water and saw reflected
there the purple asters blooming above it. By and by the doctor turned
down a grassy road leading up to a farmhouse a short distance away. "Are
you to make another call today?" asked his wife.
"Yes, there is a very sick child here."
When he had gone inside three or four children came out. A curly-headed
little girl edged close and looked up into Mary's face.
"Miss' Blank, _you_ know where Mr. Blank got our baby, _don't_ you?"
Mary, smiling down at the little questioner, said, "The doctor didn't
tell me anything about it." The little faces looked surprised and
disappointed.
"We thought you'd know an' we come out to ask you," said another little
girl. "You make all the babies' dresses, don't you?"
"Dear me, no indeed!" laughed the doctor's wife.
"Does he keep all the babies at your house?" asked the little boy.
"I think not. I never see them there."
"Didn't he ever bring any to your house?"
"Oh, yes, five of them."
"I'd watch and see where he _gets_ 'em," said the little fellow stoutly.
"Jimmie Brown said Mr. Blank found their baby down in the woods in an
old holler log."
The doctor came out, and the little boy looking up at him asked, "Is
they any more babies down in the woods?"
"Yes, yes, 'the woods is full of 'em,'" laughed the doctor as he drove
off leaving the little group quite unsatisfied.
When they had gone some distance two wagons appeared on the brow of the
hill in front of them. "Hold on, Doctor," shouted the first driver, as
the doctor was driving rapidly by, "I want to sell you a watermelon."
"Will you take your pay in pills?"
"Don't b'lieve I have any use for pills."
"Don't want one then, I'm broke this morning," and he passed the second
wagon and pulled his horse into the road again.
"Wait a minute! _I'll_ trade you a melon for some pills," called the
driver. He spread the reins over the dashboard and clambered down; the
man in front looked back at him with a grin. "I've got two kinds here,
the Cyclone and the Monarch, which would you rather have?"
"Oh, I don't care," said the doctor.
"Let us have a Monarch, please," said Mary. Monarch was a prettier name
than Cyclone, and besides there was no sense in giving so violent a name
to so peaceful a thing as a watermelon. So the Monarch was brought and
deposited in the back of the buggy.
The doctor opened his case. "Take your choice."
"What do you call this kind?"
"I call that kind Little Devils."
"How many of 'em would a feller dare take at once?"
"Well, I wouldn't take more than three unless you have a lawyer handy to
make your will."
"Why, will they hurt me?"
"They'll bring the answer if you take enough of 'em."
The man eyed the pills dubiously,--"I believe I'll let that kind alone.
What kind is this?"
"These are podophyllin pills."
"Gee, the _name's_ enough to kill a feller."
"Well, Morning-Glories is a good name. If you take too many you'll be
wafted straight to glory in the morning, and the road will be a little
rough in places."
"Confound it, Jake," called the first driver, "don't you take _none_ of
'em. Don't monkey with 'em." But Jake had agreed to trade a melon for
pills. He held out his big hand. "Pour me out some of them Little
Devils. I'll risk 'em."
The doctor emptied the small bottle into Jake's hand, replaced it in the
case and drove off.
"John, why in the world didn't you give him some instructions as to how
to take them?" asked Mary, energetically.
"He didn't ask me to prescribe for him, my dear. He wanted to trade a
watermelon for pills and we traded."
"For pity's sake," said Mary indignantly, "and you're going to let that
man kill himself while you strain at a point of professional etiquette!"
She was gazing back at the unfortunate man.
"Don't you worry, he'll be too much afraid of them to hurt himself with
them," said the doctor, laughing.
"I sincerely hope he will."
As they came in sight of home the doctor, who had been silent for some
time, sighed heavily. "I am thinking of that little child out there. I
tell you, Mary, a case of meningitis makes a man feel his limitations."
CHAPTER XIII.
A long, importunate peal. The doctor rose and went swiftly. Mary
listened with interest to what was to come:
"?"
"Yes."
"?"
"Yes."
"?"
"Yes."
"?"
"Yes."
"?"
"Yes."
He rang off.
"That was decided in the affirmative," said Mary.
* * * * *
Ting-a-ling-ling-ling. Ting-a-ling-ling-ling.
"Doctor, do you think the baby will cut any more teeth this summer?"
"You'd better ring up Solomon and ask that."
"Well--if he gets through teething--don't you think he'll be all right?"
"If he gets through with the way you _feed_ him he'll be all right."
"Well, his teething has lots to do with it."
"No, it don't--not a darned bit. If you'll take care of his stomach his
teeth will take care of themselves. It's what goes _between_ the teeth
that does the mischief. I keep telling people that every day, and once
in a while I find someone with sense enough to believe it. But a lot of
'em know too much--then the baby has to pay for it."
"Well, I'll be awful careful, Doctor."
"All right then. And stick right to the baby through the hot months. Let
me hear from it. Good-bye."
* * * * *
Ting-a-ling-ling-ling--three times. Mary rose and went. An agitated
voice said, "Come and see the baby!" and was gone. "She is terribly
frightened," thought Mary, as she rang central.
"Some one rang Dr. Blank. Can you find out who it was?"
"I'm afraid not."
"Will you please try?"
"Yes, but people ought to do their own talking and not bother us so
much."
"I know," said Mary gently, "but this is a mother badly frightened about
her baby--she did not think what she was doing and left the 'phone
without giving me her name."
Central tried with such good result that Mary was soon in possession of
the name and number. She telephoned that she would send the doctor down
as soon as she could find him, which she thought would be in a few
minutes. Then she telephoned a house where he had been for several days
making evening visits.
"Is Dr. Blank there?"
"He _was_ here. He's just gone."
"Is he too far away for you to call him?"
"Run and see, Tommy."
Silence. Then, "Yes, he's got too far to hear. I'm sorry."
"Very well. Thank you."
"Let me see," she meditated, "yes, I think he goes there."
She got the house. "Is Dr. Blank there?"
"He's just coming through the gate."
"Please ask him to come to the 'phone." After a minute his voice asked
what was wanted and Mary delivered her message.
When her husband came home that night, she said, "John, there's one more
place you're to go and you're to be there at nine o'clock."
"The deuce!" he looked at his watch, "ten minutes to nine now. Where is
it?"
"I don't know."
"Don't know?"
"No. I haven't the slightest idea."
"Why didn't you find out," he asked, sharply. Mary arched her brows.
"Suppose _you_ find out."
John rang central. With twinkling eyes his wife listened.
"Hello, central. Who was calling Dr. Blank a while ago?"
"A good many people call, Dr. Blank. I really cannot say."
The voice was icily regular, splendidly null. It nettled the doctor.
"Suppose you try to find out."
"People who need a doctor ought to be as much interested as we are. I
don't know who it was." And the receiver went up.
"Damned impudence!" said the doctor, slamming up his receiver and facing
about.
"Wait, John. That girl has had to run down the woman with the sick baby.
She didn't give _her_ name either. Central had lots of trouble in
finding her. It's small wonder she rebelled when I came at her the
second time. So all I could do was to deliver the message just as it
came, 'Tell the doctor to come down to our house and to be here at nine
o'clock.'"
"Consultation, I suppose. They'll ring again pretty soon, I dare say,
and want to know why I don't hurry up."
But nothing further was heard from the message or the messenger that
night or ever after.
* * * * *
Ting-a-ling-ling-ling.
Can we move Henry out into the yard? It's so hot inside.
* * * * *
Ting-a-ling-ling-ling.
Can we move Jennie into the house? It gets pretty cold along toward
morning.
* * * * *
Ting-a-ling-ling-ling.
Doctor, you know those pink tablets you left? I forget just how you said
to take 'em.
* * * * *
Ting-a-ling-ling-ling.
The baby's throwing up like everything.
* * * * *
Ting-a-ling-ling-ling.
Johnny's swallowed a nickel!.... You say it won't?.... And not give him
anything at all? Well, I needn't have been so scared, then.
* * * * *
Ting-a-ling-ling-ling.
The baby pulled the cat's tail and she scratched her in the face. I'm
afraid she's put her eye out..... No, the _baby's_ eye. I'm afraid she
can't see..... No, she's not crying. She's going to sleep..... Well, I
guess she _can't_ see very well with her eyes shut..... Then you won't
come down?.... All right, Doctor, you know best.
* * * * *
Ting-a-ling-ling-ling. Ting-a-ling-ling-ling.
"Is this the doctor?"
"Yes."
"The baby has a cold and I rubbed her chest with vaseline and greased
her nose. Is that all right?"
"All right."
"And I am going to make her some onion syrup, if I can remember how it's
made. How do you make it?"
"Why--O, _you_ remember how to make it."
The truth is the doctor was not profoundly learned in some of the "home
remedies" and was more helpless than the little mother herself, which
she did not suspect.
"You slice the onions and put sugar on them, don't you?"
"Yes, that'll be all right," he said, hastily putting up the receiver.
* * * * *
Ting-a-ling-ling-ling.
"Doctor, when you come down, bring something for my fever--"
"Yes, I will!"
"And for my nervousness--"
"Yes, yes." The doctor turned quickly from the 'phone, but it rang
again.
"And for my back, Doctor--"
"Yes. _Yes!_" He put the receiver up with a bang and seizing his hat
rushed away before there should be any more.
* * * * *
Three rings.
"Is this Dr. Blank's?"
"Yes."
"Is he there?"
"No, but I expect him very soon."
"When he comes will you tell him to come out to Frank Tiller's?"
"Does he know where that is?"
"He was here once."
"Lately?"
"No, some time ago."
"Please tell me what street you live on, so the doctor will know where
to go." Mary heard a consultation of a minute.
"It's on Oak street."
"East Oak or West?" Another consultation.
"North."
"Very well. I'll tell the doctor as soon as he comes."
"Tell him to come as quick as he possibly can."
Five minutes later the office ring came. Mary went obediently lest her
husband might not be in. She heard the same voice ask, "Is this you,
Doctor?"
"Yes."
"We want you to come out to Frank Tiller's as quick as you possibly
can."
"Where is that?"
"_You've_ been here."
"_Where do you live?_"
"We live on Oak street."
"East or West?"
"North."
"That street runs east and west!"
"Ma, he says the street runs east and west."
"Well, maybe it does. I've not got my directions here yet--then it must
be west."
"It's on West Oak street, Doctor."
The doctor was not quite able to locate the place yet.
"Is it the house where the girl had the sore throat?"
"Ma, he says, is it the place where the girl had the sore throat?"
"It's just in front of that house."
"She says it's just in front of that house and come just as quick as you
possibly can."
"What does she mean by 'in front of it'?"
"Why, it's just across the street, and come just as quick as you
possibly--"
"Yes. I'll _run_."
Mary smiled, but she was glad to hear her husband add a little more
pleasantly, "I'll be out there after a little."
When he came home he said, laughing, "That girl up there took the
medicine I gave her and pounded the bottle to flinders before my eyes."
"What for?"
"O, she was mad."
"What did you do then?"
"Reached down in my pocket and took out another one just like it and
told them to give it according to directions."
"Nothing like being prepared."
"I knew pretty well what I was up against before I went. The old
complaint," said John, drawing on his slippers as he spoke.
CHAPTER XIV.
Mary had been down the street, shopping. "I'll drop in and visit with
John a few minutes," she thought, as she drew near the office. When she
entered her husband was at the telephone with his back toward her.
"Hello. What is it?"
"Shake up your 'phone, I can't hear a word you're saying."
"Who?"
"Oh, yes, _I_ know." Exasperation was in every letter of every word.
"Take one every six months and let me hear from you when they're all
gone." Slam! "There's always _some_ damned thing," he muttered, and
turning faced his wife.
"A surprising prescription, John. What does it mean?"
"It means that she's one of these everlasting complainers and that I'm
tired of hearing her. She's been to Chicago and St. Louis and
Cincinnati. She's had three or four laparotomies and every time she
comes back to me with a longer story and a worse one. They've got about
everything but her appendix and they'll get that if she don't watch
out."
"Why, I thought they always got that the first thing."
"You have no idea how it tires a man to have people come to him and
complain, complain, _complain_. The story is ever new to them but it
gets mighty old to the doctor. Then they go away to the city and some
surgeon with a great name does what may seem to him to be best.
Sometimes they come back improved, sometimes not, and sometimes they
come back worse than when they went. In all probability the operator
never sees the patient again and so the last chapters of the story must
be told to the home doctor over and over again."
Mary gave a little sigh. The doctor went on:
"In many cases it isn't treatment of any kind that is needed. It is
occupation--occupation for the mind and for the hands. Something that
will make people forget themselves in their work or in their play."
Ting-a-ling-ling-ling. Ting-a-ling-ling-ling.
"Is this you, Doctor?"
"Yes."
"I wanted to see if you were at the office. I'll be over there right
away."
In a few minutes the door opened and a gentleman about thirty-five years
of age entered. His manner was greatly agitated and he did not notice
Mrs. Blank at the window near the corner of the room.
"Good morning, Mr. Blake," said the doctor, shaking hands with him,
"back again, are you?"
Mr. Blake had been to C--, his native city. He had not been well for
some time and had evinced a desire to go back and consult his old
physician there, in which Dr. Blank had heartily concurred.
"How long do you think I can live?" Mr. Blake asked now.
"What do you mean?" replied the doctor, regarding him closely.
"I want to know how much time I have. I want to get my business fixed up
before--"
"Blake, you couldn't die if you wanted to. You're not a sick enough man
for that."
The patient took a letter from his pocket and handed it in silence to
the doctor. The latter took it, looked carefully at the superscription,
read it slowly through, then folded it with cool deliberation and put it
back into the envelope.
"I thought you were going to your old physician," he said.
"Dr. Kenton was out of the city so I went to the great specialist."
"Did he tell you what was in this letter he sent to me?"
"No, but the letter was not sealed and I read it. I was so anxious to
know his opinion that I couldn't help it. Tuberculosis of the larynx--"
his voice faltered.
"Yes," said the doctor, calmly, "that is a thing a man may well be
frightened about. But listen to me, Blake. You've not got tuberculosis
of the larynx."
"Do you think a great physician like Dr. Wentworth doesn't know what he
is talking about?"
"Dr. Wentworth is a great physician; I know him well. But he is only a
man like the rest of us and therefore liable to err in judgment
sometimes. He knew you half an hour, perhaps, before he pronounced upon
your case. I have known you and watched you for fifteen years. I say you
have not got tuberculosis _and I know I am right_."
Mary saw Mr. Blake grasp her husband's hand with a look in his face that
made her think within herself, "Blessings on the country doctor wherever
he may be, who has experience and knowledge and wisdom enough to draw
just and true conclusions of his own and bravely state them when
occasion demands."
When the patient had gone Mary said to her husband, "One gets a
kaleidoscopic view of life in a doctor's office. What comes through the
ear at home comes before the eye here. The kaleidoscope turned a
bright-colored bit into the place of a dark one this time, John. I am
glad I was here to see."
As she spoke footsteps were heard on the stairs. Slow and feeble steps
they were, but at last they reached the landing and paused at the open
door. Looking out Mary saw a poorly clad woman perhaps forty years of
age, carrying in her hands a speckled hen. She was pale and trembling
violently, and sank down exhausted into the chair the doctor set for
her. He took the hen from her hands and set it on the floor. Its feet
were securely tied and it made no effort to escape. The doctor had never
seen the woman before but noting the emaciated form and the hectic flush
on the cheek he saw that consumption was fast doing its work. Mary took
the palm leaf fan lying on the table and stood beside her, fanning her
gently.
When the woman could speak she said, "I oughtn't to 'a' tried to walk,
Doctor, but there didn't seem to be anyone passin' an' this cough is
killin' me. I want something for it."
"How far did you walk?" asked Mary, kindly.
"Four mile."
"Four miles!" she looked down at the trembling form with deep pity in
her brown eyes.
"I didn't have any money, Doctor, but will the hen pay for the
medicine?" her eyes were raised anxiously to his face and Mary's eyes
met the look in the eyes of her husband.
"I don't want the hen. We haven't any place to keep her. Besides my
wife, here, is afraid of hens." A little smile flitted across the wan
face.
He told her how to take the medicine and then said, "Whenever you need
any more let me know and I'll send it to you. You needn't worry about
the pay."
"I'm very much obleeged to you, Doctor."
"Just take the hen back home with you."
"I wonder if I couldn't sell her at the store," she said, looking at the
doctor with a bright, expectant face.
"Wait here and rest awhile and then we'll see about it. I'll go down and
perhaps I can find some one in town from out your way that you can ride
home with. Where do you live?" She told him and he went down the stairs.
In a little while he came back.
"One of your neighbors is down here now waiting for you. He's just
starting home," he said. He took the hen and as they started down the
stairs Mary came out and joined them. At the foot of the stairway he
said to the grocer standing in front of his establishment, "Here,
Keller, I want you to give me a dollar for this hen."
"She ain't worth it."
"She _is_ worth it," said the doctor so emphatically that Keller put his
hand in his pocket and handed out the dollar. The poor woman did not see
the half dollar that passed from the doctor's hand to the grocer's, but
Mary saw and was glad.
The doctor laid the dollar in the trembling palm, helped the feeble
woman into the wagon and they drove off.
Mary turned to her husband and said with a little break in her voice,
"I'm going home, John. I want to get away from your kaleidoscope."
Ting-a-ling-ling-ling. Ting-a-ling-ling-ling.
"And I must go for another peep into it. Good-bye. Come again."
* * * * *
"Is this Dr. Blank?"
"Yes."
"This is Jim Sampson, Doctor, out at Sampson's mill. My boy fell out of
a tree a while ago and broke his leg, and I'm sort o' worried about it."
"It don't have to _stay_ broke, you know."
"That's just the point. I'm afraid it will--for a while at least."
"What do you mean?"
"Why, my wife says she won't have it set unless the signs are right for
setting a broken bone. She's great on the almanac signs."
"The devil! You have that bone _set_--_today_! Do you understand?"
"Yes, but Mary's awful set in her way."
"I'm a darned sight more set. That boy's not going to lie there and
suffer because of a fool whim of his mother's. Where is she? Send her to
the 'phone and I'll talk to _her_."
"She couldn't find her almanac and ran across to the neighbor's to get
one."
"Call me when she gets back."
Ten minutes passed and the call came.
"It's all right, Doctor, the signs says so."
A note of humor but of unmistakable relief vibrated in the voice.
"Come right out."
"All right, Jim, I'll be out as soon as I make my round here in town.
Tell your wife to have that almanac handy. I may learn something from
it."
An hour or two later he was starting out to get into the buggy, with
splints and other needful things when the 'phone called him back.
Hastily cramming them under the seat he went.
"Hello."
"Is this Dr. Blank?"
"This is Millie Hastings. Do you remember me?"
"No-o--I don't believe I do."
"You doctored me."
"Yes, I've 'doctored' several people."
"I had typhoid fever two years ago up in the country at my uncle's."
"What's your uncle's name?"
"Henry Peters."
"Yes, I remember now."
"I wanted to find out what my bill is."
"Wait here a moment till I look at the book."
In a minute he had found it: Millie Hastings--so many visits at such and
such a date, amounting to thirty-six dollars. He went back to the
'phone.
"Do you make your money by working by the week?"
"Yes, sir."
"Have you learned how to save it?"
"Yes, sir, I had to. I have to help mother."
"Your bill is eighteen dollars."
He heard a little gasp, then a delighted voice said: "I was afraid it
would be a good deal more. And now Dr. Blank, I want to ask a favor of
you."
"Ask away."
"I brought four dollars to town with me today to pay on my bill, but I
want a rocking chair _so_ bad--I'm over here at the furniture store
now--and there's such a nice one here that just costs four dollars and I
thought maybe you'd wait a----"
"_Certainly_ I will. Get the rocking chair by all means," and he laughed
heartily as he went out to the buggy. He climbed in and drove away, the
smile still lingering on his face. At the outskirts of the town a tall
girl hailed him from the sidewalk. He stopped.
"I was just going to your office to get my medicine," she said.
"I left it with the man there. He'll give it to you."
"Must I take it just like the other?"
"Yes. Laugh some, though, just before you take it."
"Why?"
"Because you won't feel like it afterward."
The girl looked after him as he drove on.
"He's laughing," she said to herself and a grin overspread her face as
she pursued her leisurely way.
* * * * *
Ting-a-ling-ling-ling-ling-ling-ling!!!
"Must be something unusual," thought Mary as the doctor went to the
'phone.
"Doctor, is this you?"
"Yes."
"Come out to John Lansing's quick!"
"What's the matter?"
"My wife swallowed poison. Hurry, Doctor, for God's sake!"
In a few minutes the doctor was on his horse (the roads being too bad
for a buggy) and was off. We will follow him as he plunges along through
the darkness.
Because of the mud the horse's progress was so slow that the doctor
pulled him to one side, urged him on to the board walk, much against his
inclination, and went clattering on at such a pace that the doors began
to fly open on both sides of the street and heads, turned wonderingly
after the fleeting horseman, were framed in rectangles of light.
"What _is_ the matter out there?" The angle of the heads said it so
plainly that the doctor laughed within himself as he thundered on. Now
it chanced that one of the heads belonged to a Meddlesome Matty who,
next day, stirred the matter up, and that evening two officers of the
law presented themselves at Dr. Blank's office and arrested him.
"I don't care anything about the fine. All I wanted was to get there,"
he said, handing out the three dollars.
After the horse left the board walk the road became more solid and in
about ten minutes the doctor arrived at his destination. Before he could
knock the door was opened. The patient sat reclining in a chair,
motionless, rigid, her eyes closed.
"What has she taken?" asked the doctor of the woman's husband.
"Laudanum."
"How much?"
"She told me she took this bottle full," and he held up a two ounce
bottle.
"I think she's lying," thought the doctor as he laid his fingers upon
her pulse. Then he raised the lids and looked carefully at the pupils of
the eyes. "Not much contraction here," he thought. Turning to the
husband who stood pale and trembling beside him, he said,
"Don't be alarmed--she's in no more danger than you are." He watched the
patient's face as he spoke and saw what he expected--a faint facial
movement.
"To be on the safe side we'll treat the case as if she had taken two
ounces." He gave her a hypodermic emetic then called for warm water.
"How much?" asked the husband.
"O, a half gallon will do."
A big fat woman came panting through the doorway. "I got here as quick
as I could," she gasped.
"We don't need you at all," said the doctor quietly. "Better go back
home to your children, Mrs. Johnson."
Mrs. Johnson, not liking to be cheated out of a sensation which she
dearly loved, stood still. Mr. Lansing came back with the warm water. A
faint slit appeared under the eyelids of the patient. The doctor took
the big cup and said abruptly, "Here! drink this!"
No response. "Mrs. Lansing!" he said so sharply that her eyes opened.
"Drink this water."
"I ca-an't," she murmured feebly.
"Yes, you can."
"I won't," the voice was getting stronger.
"You will."
"You'll see."
"Yes, I'll see."
He held the big vessel to her mouth. When the water began to pour down
her neck she sprang to her feet fighting it off. He held the cup in his
left hand while with his right he reached around her neck and took her
firmly by the nose. Then he held the cup against her mouth and when it
opened for breath he poured the life-saving fluid forcefully down. Great
gulps of it were swallowed while a wide sheet of water poured down her
neck and over her night-dress to the floor.
"That was very well done. Better sit down now."
The husband stood in awed silence. The fat woman shook her fist at the
doctor's back which he beheld, nothing daunted, in the looking-glass on
the wall. The patient herself sat down in absolute quiet. In a minute
she began retching and vomited some of the water. The doctor inspected
it carefully. Then he went to his overcoat on a chair, felt in the
pocket and drew out a coil of something. It looked like red rubber and
was about half an inch in diameter. He slowly unwound it. It was five or
six feet in length. A subdued voice asked,
"What are you going to do now, Doctor?"
"I am going to turn on the hose."
"Wha-a-t?"
"I am going to put this tube down into your stomach. You haven't thrown
up much of that laudanum yet."
She opened her mouth to speak and the doctor inserted one end of the
tube and began ramming it down. "Unfasten a button or two here," he said
to her husband and rammed some more. She gagged and gurgled and tried to
push his hands away.
"Hold on, we're not down yet--we're only about to the third button." He
began ramming the tube again when she looked up at her husband so
imploringly that he said, "Hold on a minute, Doctor, she wants to say
something." The doctor withdrew the tube and waited.
"I'm sure I threw it all up."
"Oh no," he said beginning to lift it again.
"I--only--took--two--or three drops."
"Why the devil didn't you say so at the start?"
"I wish I had. I just told _Jim_ that."
"To get even with him for something," announced the doctor quietly.
"How can he know so much," mused Jim's wife.
"Now I advise you not to try this game again," said the doctor as he
wound up the stomach tube and put it into his pocket. "You can't fool
Jim all the time, and you can't fool me any of the time. Good night."
And he rode home and found Mary asleep in her chair.
* * * * *
Ting-a-ling-ling-ling. Ting-a-ling-ling-ling.
"Is this you, Dr. Blank?"
"Yes."
"I wanted to ask you about an electric vibrator."
"About what?"
"An electric vibrator."
"An electric something--I didn't get the last word."
A little laugh, then "v-i-b-r-a-t-o-r."
"Oh! vibrator."
"Yes. Do you think it would help my aunt?"
"Not a durned bit."
Another little laugh, "You don't think it would?"
"No!"
"I had a letter today from my cousin and she said she knew a lady who
had had a stroke and this vibrator helped her more than anything."
"It didn't. She imagined it."
"Well, I didn't know anything about it and I knew you would, so I
thought I'd 'phone you before going any further. Much obliged, Doctor."
It would save much time and money and disappointment if all those who
don't know would pause to put a question or two to those who do. But so
it is _not_, and the maker of worthless devices and the concocter of
nostrums galore cometh oft to fortune by leaps and bounds, while the
poor, conscientious physician who sticks to the truth of things,
arriveth betimes at starvation's gate.
(I was startled a few days ago to learn that the average income of
physicians in the United States does not exceed six hundred dollars.)
* * * * *
Ting-a-ling-ling-ling. Ting-a-ling-ling-ling.
"Tell papa he's wanted at the 'phone," said Mary.
"Where is he?"
"Isn't he there in the dining room?"
"No, he isn't here."
"He must be in the kitchen then; go to the door and call him."
The small boy obeyed. "He's not out here either," he announced from the
door-way.
"Why, where can he be!" cried Mary, springing up and going swiftly to
the 'phone. "Hello."
"Is the doctor there?"
"Yes. Wait just a minute and I will call him."
She hurried through the dining room, then through the kitchen and out
into the yard. No doctor to be seen. "He passed through the house not
three minutes ago," she said to herself.
"John!"
"Doctor!"
"Doc-_tor_!"
"O, dear! I don't see how he could disappear from the face of the earth
in three minutes' time!"
She hurried around a projecting corner through a little gate and called
again.
"What is it?" asked a placid voice as its owner emerged from his new
auto garage.
"Hurry to the 'phone for pity's sake!" and he hurried. Mary, following,
all out of breath, heard this:
"Two teaspoonfuls." Then the doctor hung up the receiver. He turned to
Mary and laughed as he quoted Emerson on the mountain and the mouse.
"I chased you all over the place this afternoon, John, when the 'phone
was calling you, and couldn't find you at all. Some people have days to
'appear' but this seems to be your day to disappear. Where were you
then?"
"Out in the garage."
"Fascinating spot! I'll know where to look next time. Now come to
supper."
CHAPTER XV.
It was October--the carnival time of the year,
When on the ground red apples lie
In piles like jewels shining,
And redder still on old stone walls
Are leaves of woodbine twining.
When comrades seek sweet country haunts,
By twos and twos together,
And count like misers, hour by hour,
October's bright blue weather.
On a lovely afternoon our travelers were driving leisurely along through
partially cleared woodland. The doctor had proposed that they take this
trip in the new automobile. But Mary had declined with great firmness.
"I will not be hurled along the road in October of all months. What
fools these mortals be," she went on. "Last year while driving slowly
through the glorious Austrian Tyrol fairly holding my breath with
delight, one machine after another whizzed by, the occupants fancying
they were 'doing' the Tyrol, I dare say."
Mary looked about her, drinking in deep draughts of the delicious air.
The beautifully-tinted leaves upon every tree and bush, the blue haze in
the distance and the dreamful melancholy over all, were delightful to
her. The fragrance of wild grapes came to them as they emerged from the
woods and Mary said, "Couldn't you wait a minute, John, until I go back
and find them? I'll bring you some."
"If you were sick and had sent for a doctor would you like to have him
fool around gathering grapes and everything else on his way?"
"No, I wouldn't. I really wouldn't."
They laughed as they sped along the open country road, skirted on either
side by a rail fence. From a fence corner here and there arose tall
sumac, like candelabra bearing aloft their burning tapers. The poke-weed
flung out its royal purple banners while golden-rod and asters were
blooming everywhere. Suddenly Mary exclaimed, "I'm going to get out of
the buggy this minute."
"What for?"
"To gather those brown bunches of hazelnuts."
"Mary, I positively will not wait for you."
"John, I positively don't want you to wait for me," said Mary, putting
her foot on the step, "I'm going to stay here and gather nuts till you
come back. See how many there are?" and she sprang lightly to the
ground.
"It will be an hour or more before I can get back. I've got to take up
that pesky artery."
"It won't seem long. You know I like to be alone."
"Good-bye, then," and the doctor started off.
"Wait! John," his wife called after him. "I haven't a thing to put the
nuts in, please throw me the laprobe." The doctor crushed the robe into
a sort of bundle and threw it to her.
She spread the robe upon the ground and began plucking the bunches. Her
fingers flew nimbly over the bushes and soon she had a pile of the brown
treasures. Dear old times came trooping back. She thought of far-off
autumn days when she had taken her little wagon and gone out to the
hazel bushes growing near her father's house, and filled it to the top
and tramped it down and filled it yet again. Then a gray October day
came back when three or four girls and boys, all busy in the bushes,
talked in awed tones of the great fire--Chicago was burning up! Big, big
Chicago, which they had never seen or dreamed of seeing--all because a
cow kicked over a lamp.
Mary moved to another clump of bushes. As she worked she thought if she
had never known the joy of gathering nuts and wild grapes and
persimmons, of wandering through woods and meadows, her childhood would
have lost much that is beautiful and best, and her womanhood many of its
dearest recollections.
"You're the doctor's wife, ain't ye?"
Mary looked around quite startled. A tall woman in a blue calico dress
and a brown gingham sunbonnet was standing there. "I didn't want to
scare ye, I guess you didn't see me comin'."
"I didn't know you were coming--yes, I am the doctor's wife."
"We saw ye from the house and supposed he'd gone on to see old man
Benning and that you had stopped to pick nuts."
"You guessed it exactly," said Mary with a smile.
"We live about a quarter mile back from the road so I didn't see the
doctor in time to stop him."
"Is some one sick at your house, then?"
"Well, my man ain't a doin' right, somehow. He's been ailin' for some
time and his left foot and leg is a turnin' blue. I come to see if you
could tell me somethin' I could do for it. I'm afraid it's mortifyin'."
Mary's brown eyes opened wide. "Why, my dear woman, I couldn't tell you
anything to do. I don't know anything at all about such things."
"I supposed bein' a doctor's wife you'd learnt everything like that."
"I have learned many things by being a doctor's wife, very many things,
but what to do with a leg and foot that are mortifying I really could
not tell you." Mary turned her face away to hide a laugh that was
getting near the surface. "I will have the doctor drive up to the house
when he gets back if you wish," she said, turning to her companion.
"Maybe that would be best. Your husband cured me once when I thought
nothing would ever get me well again. I think more of him than any other
man in the world."
"Thank you. So do I."
She started off and Mary went on gathering nuts, her face breaking into
smiles at the queer errand and the restorative power imputed to herself.
"If it is as serious as she thinks, all the doctors in the world can't
do much for it, much less one meek and humble doctor's wife. But they
could amputate, I suppose, and I'm sure I couldn't, not in a scientific
way."
Thus soliloquizing, she went from clump to clump of the low bushes till
they were bereft of their fruitage. She looked down well-pleased at the
robe with the nuts piled upon it. She drew the corners up and tied her
bundle securely. This done she looked down the road where the doctor had
disappeared. "I'll just walk on and meet him," she thought. She went
leisurely along, stopping now and then to pluck a spray of goldenrod.
When she had gathered quite a bunch she looked at it closely. "You are
like some people in this world--you have a pretty name and at a little
distance _you_ are pretty: but seen too close you are a disappointment,
and more than that you are coarse. I don't want you," and she flung them
away. She saw dust rising far down the road and hoped it might be the
doctor. Yes, it was he, and Bucephalus seemed to know that he was
traveling toward home. When her husband came up and she was seated
beside him, she said, "You are wanted at that little house over yonder,"
and she told him what had taken place in the hazel bushes. "You're
second choice though, they came for me first," she said laughing.
"I wish to thunder you'd gone. They owe me a lot now they'll never pay."
"At any rate, they hold you in very high esteem, John."
"Oh, yes, but esteem butters no bread."
"Well, you'll go, won't you? I told the woman you would."
"Yes, I'll go."
He turned into a narrow lane and in a few minutes they were at the gate.
The doctor handed the reins to Mary and went inside. A girl fourteen or
fifteen years old with a bald-headed baby on her arm came out of the
house and down the path.
"Won't you come in?"
"No, thank you. We will be going home in a minute."
The girl set the baby on the gate-post. "She's the smartest baby I ever
saw," she said. "She's got a whole mouthful of teeth already."
"And how old is she?"
"She was ten months old three weeks ago last Saturday."
As today was Thursday, Mary was on the point of saying, "She will be
eleven months old in a few days then," but checked herself--she
understood. It would detract from the baby's smartness to give her
eleven months instead of only ten in which to accomplish such wonders in
the way of teeth. The doctor came out and they started. Just before they
came out to the main road they passed an old deserted house. No signs of
life were about it except the very luxuriant life in the tall jimsons
and ragweeds growing about it and reaching almost to the top of the low
doorway, yawning blackly behind them.
"I think the longest night of my life was spent in that house about
sixteen years ago. It's the only house I was ever in where there was
nothing at all to read. There wasn't even an almanac."
Mary laughed. "An almanac is a great deal better than nothing, my dear.
I found that out once upon a time when I had to stay in a house for
several hours where there was just one almanac and not another printed
page. I read the jokes two or three times till they began to pall and
then set to work on the signs. I'll always have a regard for them
because they gave me a lift through those tedious hours."
They were not far from the western edge of the piece of woodland they
were traversing and all about them was the soft red light of the setting
sun. They could see the sun himself away off through the straight and
solemn trunks of the trees. A mile farther on Mary uttered a sudden
exclamation of delight.
"See that lovely bittersweet!"
"I see, but don't ask me to stop and get you some."
"I won't, but I'll ask you to stop and let _me_ get some."
"I wouldn't bother about it. You'll have to scramble over that ditch and
up the bank--"
"I've scrambled over worse things in my life," she said, springing from
the buggy and picking her way down the intervening ditch. The bright red
berries in their flaring yellow hoods were beautiful. She began breaking
off the branches. When she had gathered a large bunch and was turning
toward the buggy she saw a vehicle containing two women approaching from
the opposite direction. There was a ditch on either side of the road
which, being narrow at this point, made passing a delicate piece of
work. The doctor drew his horse to one side so that the wheels of the
buggy rested on the very brink and waited for them to pass; he saw that
there was room with perhaps a foot or two to spare.
On came the travelers and--the front wheels of the two vehicles were
locked in a close embrace. For a minute the doctor did some vigorous
thinking and then he climbed out of the buggy. It was a trying position.
He could not say all of the things he wanted to--it would not be polite;
neither did he want to act as if it were nothing because Mary might not
understand the extent of the mischief she had caused and how much out of
humor he was with her. It would be easier if she were only out of
hearing instead of looking at him across the ditch with apologetic eyes.
The doctor's horse began to move uneasily but the other stood perfectly
still.
"He's used to this sort of thing, perhaps," said the doctor with as
little sarcasm as possible.
"Yes, we have run into a good many buggies and things," said one of the
women, cheerfully.
"Women beat the devil when it comes to driving," thought the doctor
within himself. "They'll drive right over you and never seem to think
they ought to give part of the road. And they do it everywhere, not only
where there are ditches." He restrained his speech, backed the offending
vehicle and started the travelers on. While he was doing so his own
steed started on and he had a lively run to catch him.
Mary had thought of turning back to break off another spray of the
bittersweet but John's profanity was rising to heaven. Diplomacy
required her to get to the buggy and into it at once. This she did and
the doctor plunged in after her.
"Forgive me for keeping you waiting," she said gently. She held the
bittersweet out before her. "Isn't it lovely, John?"
A soft observation turneth away wrath. The doctor's was oozing away
sooner than he wished.
They drove on for a while in silence. The soft, still landscape dotted
here and there with farm houses and with graceful elm and willow trees,
was lit up and glorified by the after-glow. The evening sky arching
serenely over a quiet world, how beautiful it was! And as Mary's eyes
caught a glittering point of light in the blue vault above them, she
sang softly to herself:
"O, thou sublime, sweet evening star,
Joyful I greet thee from afar."
For a while she watched the stars as one by one they twinkled into view,
then drawing her wraps more closely about her, she leaned back in the
carriage and gave herself up to pleasant reflection, and before she
realized it the lights of home were twinkling cheerily ahead.
CHAPTER XVI.
"You are not going out tonight, John, no matter how often the 'phone
rings. I positively will not let you." Mary spoke with strong emphasis.
All the night before he had been up and today had been a hard day for
him. She had seldom seen him so utterly weary as he was tonight. He had
come home earlier than usual and now sat before the fire, his head sunk
on his breast, half asleep.
"Go right to bed, dear, then you can really rest."
The doctor, too tired to offer any resistance, rose and went to the
bedroom. In a few minutes his wife heard regular sonorous sounds from
the bed. (When she spoke of these sounds to John, Mary pronounced it
without the first _o_.)
Glad that he had so soon fallen into deep sleep she settled back in her
chair. "I'll protect him tonight," she thought, "though fiery darts be
hurled."
She thought of many things. The fire-light gleamed red upon the hearth.
All was still. The sounds from the adjoining room had ceased. Something
stirred within her and she rose and went softly to the bedside of her
sleeping husband. In the half-light she could see the strong, good face.
Dear John so profane yet so patient, so severe yet so tender, what would
it be to face life without him. She laid her hand very lightly on the
hand which lay on the counterpane, then took it away lest it disturb the
sleeper. She went back to her chair and opening a little volume took
from it a folded sheet. Twice before today had she read the words
written within it. A dear friend whose husband had recently died had
written her, inclosing them. She read them again now:
IN MEMORIAM,--A PRAYER.
"O God! The Father of the spirits of all flesh, in whatsoever world
or condition they be,--I beseech Thee for him whose name, and
dwelling place, and every need Thou knowest. Lord, vouchsafe him
peace and light, rest and refreshment, joy and consolation in
Paradise, in the ample folds of Thy great love. Grant that his life,
so troubled here, may unfold itself in Thy sight, and find
employment in the spacious fields of Eternity.--If he hath ever been
hurt or maimed by any unhappy word or deed of mine, I pray Thee, of
Thy great pity, to heal and restore him, that he may serve Thee
without hindrance.
"Tell him, O gracious Father, if it may be,--how much I love him and
miss him, and long to see him again; and if there may be ways in
which he may come, vouchsafe him to me as guide and guard, and grant
me such sense of his nearness as Thy laws permit. If in aught I can
minister to his peace, be pleased of Thy love to let this be; and
mercifully keep me from every act which may deprive me of the sight
of him, as soon as our trial time is over, or mar the fullness of
our joy when the end of the days hath come."
Mary brushed away a tear from her cheek. "This letter has awakened
unusual thoughts. I will--"
A sharp peal from the telephone.
"What is it?"
"Is the doctor at home?"
"Yes. He has gone to bed and is fast asleep."
"Oh! We wanted him to come down to see my sister."
"He was up all last night and is not able to come--"
"Can I just talk to him about her?"
Mary sighed. To rouse him from his sorely needed sleep was too cruel.
Then she spoke. "I must not disturb him unless it is absolutely
necessary. I shall be sitting here awake--call me again in a little
while if you think it necessary."
"A--l--l r--i--g--h--t--" and a sob came distinctly to the listener's
ear.
This was too much for Mary. "I'll call him," she said hurriedly and went
to the bedroom.
With much difficulty she roused him. He threw back the covers, got up
and stumbled to the 'phone.
"Hello..... Yes..... They didn't? Is she suffering much?.... All right,
I'll be down in a little bit."
Mary groaned aloud. She had vowed to protect him though fiery darts be
hurled. But the sob in the voice of a frightened young girl was more
potent than any fiery dart could have been and had melted her at once.
Slowly but surely the doctor got himself into his clothes.
"I don't think there's any use of my going down there again, but I
suppose I'll have it to do." When he returned an hour later, he said,
"Just as I thought--they were badly scared over nothing. I shouldn't
wonder if they'd rout me out again before morning."
"No, they won't," said Mary to herself, and when her husband was safe in
bed again, she walked quietly to the telephone, took down the receiver
and _left_ it down. "Extreme cases require extreme measures," she
thought as she, too, prepared for her night's rest. But there was a
haunting feeling in her mind about the receiver hanging there. Suppose
some one who really did need the doctor should call and call in vain.
She would not think of it. She turned over and fell asleep and they both
slept till morning and rose refreshed for another day.
* * * * *
A few weeks later circumstances much like those narrated above arose,
and the doctor's wife for the second and last time left the receiver
down. About two o'clock there came a tragic pounding at the door and
when the doctor went to open it a voice asked, "What's the matter down
here?"
"Why?"
"Central's been ringing you to beat the band and couldn't get you
awake."
"Strange we didn't hear. What's wanted?" He had recognized the messenger
as the night clerk at the hotel not far from his home.
"A man hurt at the railroad--they're afraid he'll bleed to death.
Central called me and asked me to run over here and rouse you."
When the doctor was gone Mary rose tremblingly and hung up the receiver.
She would not tell John what she had done. He would be angry. She had
felt that the end justified the means--that he was tired out and half
sick and sorely needed a night's unbroken rest--but if the end should be
the bleeding to death of this poor man--
She dared not think of it. She went back to bed but not to sleep. She
lay wide awake keenly anxious for her husband's return. And when at last
he came her lips could hardly frame the question, "How is he, John?"
"Pretty badly hurt, but not fatally."
"Thank heaven!" Mary whispered, and formed a quick resolve which she
never broke. This belonged to her husband's life--it must remain a part
of it to the end.
CHAPTER XVII.
One lovely morning in April, Mary was called to the telephone.
"I want you to drive to the country with me this morning," said her
husband.
"I'll be delighted. I have a little errand down town and I'll come to
the office--we can start from there." Accordingly half an hour later she
walked into the office and seated herself in a big chair to wait till
John was ready. The door opened and a small freckle-faced boy entered.
"Good morning, Governor," said the doctor. The governor grinned.
"What can I do for you today?"
"How much will ye charge to pull a tooth?"
"Well, I'll pull the tooth and if it don't hurt I won't charge anything.
Sit down."
The boy sat down and the doctor got out his forceps. The tooth came hard
but he got it. The boy clapped his hand over his mouth but not a sound
escaped him.
"There it is," said the doctor, holding out the offending member. "Do
you want it?" A boy's tooth is a treasure to be exhibited to all one's
friends. He took it and put it securely in his pocket.
"How much do I have to pay?"
"Did it hurt?"
"Nope."
"Nothing at all."
The boy slid from the chair and out of the door, ecstasy overspreading
all the freckles.
"That boy has a future," said Mary looking after him with a smile.
"I see they have brought the horse. We must be starting."
Ting-a-ling-ling-ling. Ting-a-ling-ling-ling.
"They want ye down at Pete Jansen's agin."
"What's the matter there now?"
"O, that youngun's been _drinkin'_ somethin' agin."
"Into the lye this time, too?"
"No, it's coal oil and bluin' this time and I don't know what else."
"I'll be down right away," said the doctor, taking up his hat.
"Get into the buggy and drive down with me, Mary, it's just at the edge
of town and then we can drive on into the country."
When they stopped at the house, an unpainted little frame structure,
Mary held the horse while her husband went in.
"Where's the boy?" he asked, looking around.
"He's out in the back yard a-playin' now, I guess," his mother replied
from the bed.
"Then what in thunder did you send for me for?"
"Why, I was scared for fear it would kill him." The doctor turned to go
then paused to ask, "How's the baby?"
"She's doin' fine."
"She's just about a week old now, isn't she?"
"A week yesterday. Don't you want to see how much she's growed?"
The doctor went to the bed and looked down at the wee little maiden.
"Great God!" he exclaimed, so fiercely that the woman was frightened.
"Why haven't you let me know about this baby's eyes?"
"W'y, we didn't think it'd 'mount to anything. We thought they'd git
well in a day or two."
"She'll be blind in less than a week if something isn't done for them."
"Grandmother's been a doctorin' 'em some."
"Well, there's going to be a change of doctors right straight. I'm going
to treat this baby's eyes myself."
"We don't want any strong medicine put in a baby's eyes."
"It don't make a bit of difference what you want. I'm going to the drug
store now to get what I need and I want you to have warm water and clean
cloths ready by the time I get back. Is there anyone here to do it?"
"There's a piece of a girl out there in the kitchen. She ain't much
'count." The doctor went to the kitchen door and gave his orders.
"I'd ruther you'd let the baby's eyes alone. I'm afraid to have strong
medicine put in 'em."
For answer he went out, got into the buggy and drove rapidly back to
town where he procured what he needed and in a few minutes was back.
"You'd better come in this time, Mary, you'll get tired of waiting and
besides I want you to see this baby. I want you to know something about
what every father and mother ought to understand."
They went in and the doctor took the baby up and seated himself by the
chair on which stood a basin of water. The mother, with very ungracious
demeanor, looked on. Mary, shocked and filled with pity, looked down
into the baby's face. The inflammation in the eyes was terrible. The
secretion constantly exuded and hung in great globules to the tiny lids.
Never in her life had she seen anything like it. "Let me hold it for
you," she said, sitting down and taking the baby in her lap.
The doctor turned the little head toward him and held it gently between
his knees. He took a pair of goggles from his pocket and put them over
his eyes to protect them from the poison, then tenderly as any mother
could have done, he bathed and cleansed the poor little eyes opening so
inauspiciously upon the world. He thought as he worked of this terrible
scourge of infancy, producing one-third of all the blindness in the
world. He thought too, that almost all of this blindness was preventable
by prompt and proper treatment. Statistics had proven these two things
beyond all doubt. He thought of the earnest physicians who had labored
long to have some laws enacted in regard to this stupendous evil but
with little result.[1]
[1] 1. Ophthalmia Neonatorum
2. There has been legislation for the prevention of blindness in the
States of New York, Maine, Rhode Island and Illinois.
When they were in the buggy again Mary said, "But what if the baby goes
blind after all? Of course they would say that you did it with your
'strong medicine.'"
"Of course they would, but that would not disturb me in the least. But
it will not go blind now. I'll see to that."
Soon they had left the town behind them and were fairly on their way.
The soft, yet bracing, air of the April morning was delightful. The sun
shone warm. Birds carolled everywhere. The buds on the oak trees were
swelling, while those on the maples were bursting into red and furzy
bloom. Far off to the left a tall sycamore held out white arms in
welcome to the Springtime and perfect stillness lay upon the landscape.
"I am so glad the long reign of winter and bad roads is ended, John, so
I can get out with you again into the blessed country."
"And I am glad to have good company."
"Thanks for that gallant little speech. Ask me often, but I won't go
every time because you might get tired of me and I'd be sure to get
tired of you."
"Thanks for that gracious little speech."
* * * * *
That evening when the doctor and Mary were sitting alone, she said,
"John, that baby's eyes have haunted me all day long. And you say
one-third of the blindness of the world is due to this disease."
"Yes."
"That seems to me a terrific accusation against you doctors. What have
you been doing to prevent it?"
"Everything that has been done--not very much, I'm afraid. Speaking for
myself, I can say that I have long been deeply interested. I have
written several papers on the subject--one for our State Medical
Society."
"So far so good. But I'd like to know more about it."
"Write to the secretary of the State Board of Health for all the
information that he can give you."
The next day Mary wrote. Three days later she received the following
letter:
SPRINGFIELD, NOV. 16, 1909.
My dear Mrs. Blank:
Several states of the Union have laws in relation to the prevention
of blindness, some good, some bad, and some indifferent, and I fear
that the last applies to the manner in which the laws are enforced
in the majority of the States. In the December, 1908, _Bulletin_ of
this Board, a copy of which I send you under separate cover, you
will find the Illinois law, which, as you can readily see, is very
difficult of enforcement.
But, as I said, much can be done in its enforcement if the State
Board of Health can secure the co-operation of the physicians of the
State. However, in this connection you will note that I have made an
appeal to physicians, on page 757. Yet, to the best of my knowledge,
the Board has not received one inquiry in regard to the enforcement
of this law, except from the Committee on the Prevention of
Ophthalmia Neonatorum.
In regard to the other States, it will take me some time to look up
the laws, but I will advise you in a few days.
Sincerely yours,
J. A. EGAN.
After reading it carefully through, Mary's eye went back to the
sentence, "Much can be done if the State Board of Health can secure the
co-operation of the physicians of the State."
She rose and walked the floor. "If I were a Voice--a persuasive voice,"
she thought, "I would fly to the office of every physician in our great
State and then to every physician in the land and would whisper in his
ear, 'It is your glorious privilege to give light to sightless eyes. It
is more: it is your sacred duty. O, be up and doing!'"
"To think, John," she said, turning impetuously toward her husband,
"that I, all these years the wife of a man who knows this terrible
truth, should just be finding it out. Then think of the thousands of men
and women who know nothing about it. How are they to know? Who is to
tell them? Who is to blame for the blindness in the first place? Who
can--"
Ting-a-ling-ling-ling. Ting-a-ling-ling-ling. Ting-a-ling-ling-ling.
"Is this Dr. Blank?"
"Yes."
"This is Mr. Ardmore. Can you come up to my house right away?"
"Right away."
When he arrived at his destination he was met at the door by a
well-dressed, handsome young man. "Just come into this room for a few
minutes, Doctor. My wife says they are not quite ready for you in
there."
"Who is the patient?" asked the doctor as he walked into the room
indicated.
"The baby boy."
"The baby boy!" exclaimed the doctor. "I didn't know the little rascal
had got here."
"Yes, you were out of town. My wife and I thought that ended the matter
but he got here just the same."
"Mighty glad to hear it. How old is he?"
"Just ten days."
"Pretty fine, isn't he?"
"You bet! I wouldn't take all the farms in these United States for him."
"To be sure. To be sure," laughed the doctor. He picked up a little
volume lying open on the table. "Do you like Omar?" he asked, aimlessly
turning the pages.
"Very much. I don't always get the old Persian's meaning exactly. Take
this verse," he reached for the book and turning back a few pages read:
"The moving finger writes; and having writ,
Moves on; nor all your piety nor wit
Shall lure it back to cancel half a line,
Nor all your tears wash out a word of it.
That sounds pretty but it has something in it that almost scares a
fellow--he doesn't know why."
The nurse appeared in the doorway and announced that the doctor might
come in now. Both men rose and went across the hall into the bedroom.
The doctor shook hands with the baby's mother. "Where did you get this?"
he asked, laying his hand on the downy little head.
"He came out of the everywhere into the here," she quoted, smiling.
"Nurse, turn the baby's face up so the doctor can see his eyes. They're
greatly inflamed, Doctor," she said.
The doctor started. "Bring a light closer," he said sharply.
While the light was being brought he asked, "Did this inflammation begin
when the baby was about three days old?"
"He was exactly three days old."
"And been growing worse ever since?"
"Yes. Dr. Brown was with me when he was born. He came in the next day
and everything was all right. Then he was called to Chicago and I didn't
know enough about babies to know that this might be serious."
"_You_ ought to have known," said the doctor sternly, turning to the
nurse.
"I am not a professional nurse. I have never seen anything like this
before."
The light was brought and the nurse took the baby in her arms. The
doctor, bending over it, lifted the swollen little lids and earnestly
scrutinized the eyes. _The cornea was entirely destroyed!_
"O God!" The words came near escaping him. Sick at heart he turned his
face away that the mother might not see. She must not know the awful
truth until she was stronger. He gave some instructions to the nurse,
then left the room followed by the baby's father.
"Stop for a few minutes, Doctor, if you please. I'd like to ask you
something about this," and both resumed their seats, after Mr. Ardmore
had closed the door.
"Do you think the baby's eyes have been hurt by too much light?"
"No by darkness--Egyptian darkness."
The young man looked at him in wonder.
"What is the disease?"
"It is Ophthalmia Neonatorum, or infantile sore eyes."
"What is the nature of it?"
"It is always an infection."
"How can that be? There has been nobody at all in the room except Dr.
Brown and the nurse."
The doctor did not speak. There came into his mind the image of Mary as
she had asked so earnestly, "How are they to know? Who is to tell them?"
Leaning slightly forward and looking the young man in the face he said,
"I do not know absolutely, but _you_ know!"
"Know what?"
"Whether or not your child's eyes have had a chance to be infected by
certain germs."
"What do you mean, Doctor?" asked the young father in vague alarm.
Slowly, deliberately, and with keen eyes searching the other's face the
doctor made reply:
"I mean that the sins of the fathers are visited upon the children."
There was bewildered silence for an instant then a wave of crimson
surged over neck, cheek and brow. It was impossible to meet the doctor's
eyes. The young man looked down and made no attempt to speak. By and by
he said in a low voice, "It's no use for me to deny to you, Doctor, that
I have been a fool and have let my base passions master me. But if I had
dreamed of any such result as this they wouldn't have mastered me--I
know that."
"The man that scorns these vile things because of the eternal wrong in
them will never have any fearful results rising up to confront him."
"All that has been put behind me forever, Doctor; I feel the truth and
wisdom of what you say. Just get my boy's eyes well and he shall never
be ashamed of his father."
The doctor looked away from the handsome, intelligent face so full at
that moment of love and tenderness for this new son which had been given
into his care and keeping, and a wave of pity surged over him. But he
must go on to the bitter end.
"You have not understood this old Persian's verse," he said, taking up
the little book again. "Tonight his meaning is to be made plain to you."
Slowly he read:
"The Moving Finger writes; and, having writ,
Moves on; nor all your Piety nor Wit
Shall lure it back to cancel half a Line,
Nor all your Tears wash out a Word of it."
He laid the volume gently down and turning, faced the younger man.
"Listen: In those licentious days the Moving Finger was writing a word
for the future to reveal. It wrote BLIND in the eyes of your helpless
child."
"My God! You don't mean it!"
"It is true. The cornea is destroyed."
A deathly pallor overspread the young man's face. He bowed his head in
his hands and great sobs shook his frame. "My God! My God!" he gasped
over and over again. Accustomed as the doctor was to suffering and
sorrow this man's anguish was too much for him. The tears rolled down
his cheeks and he made no effort to restrain them.
After a long time the younger man raised his head and spoke in broken
words, "Doctor, I must not keep you here. You are needed elsewhere.
Leave me to Remorse. I am young and you are growing old, Doctor, but
will you take this word from me? You and all in your profession should
long ago have told us these things. The world should not lie in
ignorance of this tremendous evil. If men will not be saved from
themselves they will save their unborn children, if they only know. God
help them."
The doctor went slowly homeward, his mind filled with the awful calamity
in the household he had left. "It is time the world is waking," he
thought. "We must arouse it."
* * * * *
Ting-a-ling-ling-ling. Ting-a-ling-ling-ling. Ting-a-ling-ling-ling.
"Is this Mrs. Blank?"
It was a manly voice vibrating with youth and joy.
"I want to tell you that your husband has just left a sweet little
daughter at our house."
"Oh, has he! I'm very glad, Mr. Farwell. Thank you for telephoning.
Father, mother and baby all doing well?"
"Fine as silk. I had to tell _somebody_ right away. Now I'm off to send
some telegrams to the folks at home. Goodbye."
Ting-a-ling-ling-ling. Ting-a-ling-ling-ling. Ting-a-ling-ling-ling.
"This is Mrs. Blank is it not?"
"Yes."
"Will you please tell the doctor that father is dead. He died twenty
minutes ago."
"The doctor was expecting the message, Mr. Jameson," said Mary gently.
This, too, was the voice of a young man, but quiet, subdued, bringing
tidings of death instead of life. And Mary, going back to her seat in
the twilight, thought of the words of one--Life is a narrow vale between
the cold and barren peaks of two eternities. The eternity before the
baby came, the eternity after the old man went, were solemnly in her
thoughts. But they were not cold and barren peaks to her. They were
crowned with light and warmth and love.
And into her thoughts came, too, the never-ending story of the 'phone as
it was unfolding itself to her throughout the years. Humor and pathos,
folly and wisdom, tragedy and comedy, pain, anguish, love, joy,
sorrow--all had spoken and had poured their brief story into the
listening ear of the helper. And when he was not there, into the ear of
one who must help in her own poor way.
O countless, countless messages stored in her memory to await his
coming! Only she could know how faithfully she had guarded and delivered
them. Only she could--
Ting-a-ling. Ting-a-ling. Ting-a-ling-ling-ling.
[ Transcriber's Note:
The following is a list of corrections made to the original.
The first line is the original line, the second the corrected one.
"That's about five miles out, isn't it. Whose sick out there?"
"That's about five miles out, isn't it. Who's sick out there?"
Well, where is the _doctor_?"
"Well, where is the _doctor_?"
Small's at Drayton. When the voice came she said, "I wanted to tell you
Small's at Drayton." When the voice came she said, "I wanted to tell you
"Mary heard the 'phoner say in an aside, "He won't be back for an hour
Mary heard the 'phoner say in an aside, "He won't be back for an hour
asked central to give her Drayton, Mr. Walton's house."
asked central to give her Drayton, Mr. Walton's house.
She flew to the Farmers' phone.
She flew to the Farmers' 'phone.
"Wait a minute, I'll see." She raced through the pages,--yes, here it
"Wait a minute, I'll see." She raced through the pages,--"yes, here it
"Thought you was a-goin' to hold the' phone. I've had a turrible time
"Thought you was a-goin' to hold the 'phone. I've had a turrible time
"Shake up your 'phone. I can't hear you.
"Shake up your 'phone. I can't hear you."
interested listener at the phone. Going, one morning, to speak to a
interested listener at the 'phone. Going, one morning, to speak to a
"Doctor, will it hurt the baby to bathe it every morning?" I've been
"Doctor, will it hurt the baby to bathe it every morning? I've been
"Likes to see it's mamma?"
"Likes to see its mamma?"
My land! I've been here three or four times. Looks like I'd ketch him
"My land! I've been here three or four times. Looks like I'd ketch him
was mightly emphatic."
was mightily emphatic."
That sounds good, Doctor. I was awfully scared. Much obliged.
"That sounds good, Doctor. I was awfully scared. Much obliged.
"Wait a minute, Mrs. Blank," said the voice of central, some one is
"Wait a minute, Mrs. Blank," said the voice of central, "some one is
"Yes, you _can_!" roared a voice. You jist want to fool around." The
"Yes, you _can_!" roared a voice. "You jist want to fool around." The
It's _exactly_ in his line. Years ago when I was a little girl he
"It's _exactly_ in his line. Years ago when I was a little girl he
would break and then she said, "Father, I _must_ tell you, but don't
would break and then she said, 'Father, I _must_ tell you, but don't
tell mother; and then she told me."
tell mother'; and then she told me."
"The doctor was fixing up powders and went placidly on till he got
The doctor was fixing up powders and went placidly on till he got
"Oh," said the voice, somewhat mollified, I'll just call him up when he
"Oh," said the voice, somewhat mollified, "I'll just call him up when he
number again with vehemence."
number again with vehemence.
The circumflexes were irresistible."
The circumflexes were irresistible.
him this evening. This is Mrs. X. Will you be right out?
him this evening. This is Mrs. X. Will you be right out?"
"When I yas a young fellow and first hung up my shingle it was a
"When I was a young fellow and first hung up my shingle it was a
"Certainly," I answered promptly.
'Certainly,' I answered promptly.
"My husband is very sick and I came to see if you would go down and ask
'My husband is very sick and I came to see if you would go down and ask
Dr. Smithson to come and see him." I swallowed my astonishment and
Dr. Smithson to come and see him.' I swallowed my astonishment and
sweet day you'll retire from practise. Then hully-gee! won't I be free!
sweet day you'll retire from practice. Then hully-gee! won't I be free!
"Then do it. Do it right away. Have the water _hot_, now.
"Then do it. Do it right away. Have the water _hot_, now."
If they knew what I know their little hearts would almost burst for
"If they knew what I know their little hearts would almost burst for
there," she continued. "A woman's intuitions are safe guides' but she
there," she continued. "'A woman's intuitions are safe guides' but she
table his wife, said, "John, I shouldn't think you'd say things like that
table his wife said, "John, I shouldn't think you'd say things like that
"Hell-_o_!" Where's the doctor?"
"Hell-_o_! Where's the doctor?"
"Yes. When I went in the man who was a stranger to me, said, "I'll tell
"Yes. When I went in the man who was a stranger to me, said, 'I'll tell
said to myself, "He's the man I want."
said to myself, "He's the man I want."'"
"Very well Thank you."
"Very well. Thank you."
The voice was icily regular, spendidly null. It nettled the doctor.
The voice was icily regular, splendidly null. It nettled the doctor.
"_Where do you live!_"
"_Where do you live?_"
"Well maybe it does. I've not got my directions here yet--then it must
"Well, maybe it does. I've not got my directions here yet--then it must
"My wife swallowed poison. Hurry, Doctor, for God's sake!
"My wife swallowed poison. Hurry, Doctor, for God's sake!"
CHAPTER XVI.
CHAPTER XVII.
"I'll be down right away," said the doctor, taking up his hat."
"I'll be down right away," said the doctor, taking up his hat.
"Why haven't you let me know about this baby's eyes."
"Why haven't you let me know about this baby's eyes?"
inauspiciously upon the world. He thought as he worked of this terribe
inauspiciously upon the world. He thought as he worked of this terrible
"Thanks for that gracious little speech.
"Thanks for that gracious little speech."
Nor all your Tears wash out a Word of it.
Nor all your Tears wash out a Word of it."
]
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Telephone--Told by His Wife, by Ellen M. Firebaugh
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