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:
“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:
“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.”
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?”
“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?”
“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—”
“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,