Kitabı oku: «The Story of a Doctor's Telephone—Told by His Wife», sayfa 5
“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.”
