Kitabı oku: «The Story of a Doctor's Telephone—Told by His Wife», sayfa 7
“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.”
