“Mean to tell me she won’t let you go?” demanded Dr. Joe, in his big
voice.
“No,” said young Bennett stoutly, “I don’t mean to tell you anything of
the sort. Of course she’d let me go; only, if I did, there’d be no
one--well, no one to look after the furnace or--”
“Merciful powers!” said Dr. Joe, staring at his friend in pity and
wonder. “So that’s what it’s done to you!” he thought. “Can’t take two
weeks off for a hunting trip with your old friend! Can’t call your soul
your own!”
He was determined not to say a word of this, though.
“If the man’s happy,” he thought, “the thing for me is to be tactful.”
And no one could have convinced him that he was not tactful. He got up,
a formidable figure of a man, more than six feet in height and stalwart
in proportion. He was under thirty-five, yet no one ever spoke of him as
a young man, any more than people called him a handsome man, in spite of
the fine regularity of his massive features. He was simply Dr. Joe.
There was no one like him.
“Well, my boy,” he said, in a soothing way, “I’ll be off now. Got half a
dozen calls to make before lunch. See you--”
“Look here, Joe! I want you to come to dinner with us on Sunday.”
“Can’t do it!” replied Dr. Joe, in alarm.
“You’ve got to do it, Joe. She wants to meet you, and I want you to
see--what she’s done for me.”
“Seen that already!” thought Dr. Joe, but, true to his policy of
tactfulness, he kept the thought to himself. “Some other time, old man,”
he said.
“You know you can come on Sunday if you want to,” insisted Bennett.
Dr. Joe did know that. What is more, he knew that Bennett knew it.
“And I’ll have to go some time,” he thought ruefully, so he said: “All
right, old man--Sunday it is!”
It was a genuine sacrifice. Although Sunday was six days off, the
thought of it recurred to him from time to time during the morning, and
bothered him. He hated to be pinned down to a definite engagement. His
day’s work was always heavy, and, when it was done, he liked to go home.
If no calls came for him in the evening, he was glad to drop in to see a
friend, for he was a sociable sort of fellow, but he very much disliked
feeling that he _had_ to go, that he was expected somewhere at a
definite time. He liked, in short, to feel free.
“Breath of life to me,” he reflected. “As Patrick Henry said, give me
liberty or give me death. There’s Bennett--married--tied down like
that--dare say he’s happy, but it wouldn’t suit me. No, sir! I’ve got to
have my liberty. Come and go as I please--meals when it suits me--come
home tired--put on an old coat and light my pipe--that’s the life for
me!”
Leaving the enslaved Bennett in his office, Dr. Joe drove off about his
business. He flew along the quiet country roads in his little car. He
would stop before a house and run up the steps. He never rang bells. If
a door was locked, he knocked vigorously upon it. If it was not locked,
he flung it open and walked in; and he had never yet failed to find a
welcome inside. His step was by no means light, yet no one, not even the
most querulous and nervous patient, had ever complained of that. He was
Dr. Joe. He expected every one to be glad to see him, and every one was.
Things went well that morning. All the patients he visited were doing
nicely, and the weather was superb--a cool, bright October day. He drove
home for lunch in a very cheerful humor. He was contented and hungry.
As he neared his own house, however, a faint cloud came over his
satisfaction. He hoped that Mrs. MacAdams, his housekeeper, would not
give him that stew again to-day.
“Don’t like to say anything to her,” he thought; “but seems to me we’re
having that stew pretty often these days. It’s not--well, it’s all
right, of course, but--”
He went up the steps of the veranda and burst open his own front door
with a magnificent crash. That was his signal to Mrs. MacAdams to put
his lunch on the table.
He did not turn his head in the direction of the waiting room, though he
knew that people were in there. His office hours were from two to four,
and patients had no business to come at one o’clock. He often said, with
vehemence, that he would see no one--absolutely no one--before two
o’clock; but he did. He said he _would_ eat his lunch in peace; but he
didn’t. He always had to hurry.
So he was going sternly toward the dining room, without even glancing in
at the waiting room, when an extraordinary sight arrested him. There was
some one sitting in the hall!
This was altogether too much. Bad enough for patients to come long
before office hours, and haunt him while he ate his lunch, but to come
out into the hall to waylay him!
He gave this person a severe glance. He got in return a glance which
somehow disconcerted him--a cool, amused, very steady glance. He stopped
short. The intruder was a woman. She was sitting in a high-backed chair,
her hands lying extended on the arms, and her feet planted solidly
before her, side by side. It was an Egyptian sort of attitude.
There was nothing else about her, however, to suggest old Egypt. That
wrinkled, weather-beaten face with the long upper lip, half doleful,
half humorous, and those twinkling little gray eyes, were unmistakably
Irish; and Dr. Joe had rather a weakness for that race. Moreover, she
was shabbily dressed--a thing difficult for him to resist--and her hair
was gray. His just resentment vanished.
“See here!” he said reproachfully. “You ought to be in the waiting room.
Patients aren’t allowed to sit out here.”
She rose.
“I am not one o’ thim,” she said. “It’s business I’ve come to see ye
about.”
“Selling something?” asked Dr. Joe.
If she was, he meant to buy it.
“I am not,” she answered calmly. “I came to see ye about the bye.”
“Buying what?”
“I mean the young bye--the lad--” she began, when Mrs. MacAdams appeared
in the doorway of the dining room.
“Your lunch is on the table, doctor,” she announced, in a faint, sad
voice. “I told that person--”
“I’ll wait,” said the person.
Dr. Joe waved his hand toward Mrs. MacAdams, and, as if he had been a
wizard, she vanished. It was never her policy to argue with her
employer.
“I don’t understand you,” said Dr. Joe to the Irishwoman. “What is it
you want?”
He spoke almost gently, for something in this shabby, gray-haired
stranger touched him. He didn’t care to eat his lunch and leave her
sitting in the hall.
“Come here, Frankie!” said she.
From a shadowy corner, where he had been standing unobserved, came a
small boy--a very small boy, thin and wiry, with red hair and a pale,
freckled face; a sulky-looking little boy, very neatly dressed in a
sailor suit and a cap which proclaimed him as belonging to the United
States Navy.
“Take off yer cap, me lad,” said she, “and say good day to the doctor.”
Frankie snatched off the cap, but speak he would not.
“He’s a fantastical bye,” she explained. “Ye’d never believe the notions
he has. What’s in his mind now is he wants to be a doctor; and I’ve come
to see will ye make a doctor of him?”
Dr. Joe began to laugh, but he stopped when he saw the woman’s face.
“But you see--” he said. “A child of that age--how old is he?”
“He is eight.”
“He can’t know what he wants!”
“He knows,” she asserted tranquilly. “It’s a doctor he wants to be. I’ve
been told yourself is the best doctor in it at all, and I’ve brought
the bye to ye to see will ye lave him study with ye.”
The doctor struggled against another outburst of laughter.
“I’m afraid--” he began.
“His father’ll be paying whativer is right for the larnin’,” said the
woman. She paused a moment. “His father is a grand, rich man,” she went
on. “Him an’ his wife is travelin’ in foreign lands, and they’ve lift
the bye with me. It’s his nurse I am. Katie is me name.”
“See here, Katie!” said Dr. Joe, very kindly. “The child’s far too
young. Later on, perhaps--”
“Doctor dear!” she interrupted with intense earnestness. “Will ye not
lave him try? He’s to school in the mornin’s. Will ye not lave him be
with ye in the afternoons, to be watchin’ the way ye’ll be healin’ the
sick? Ye’d not know by lookin’ at him all that’s in his head. If ye’ll
talk to him, drawin’ it out of him, ye’ll see!”
“I’m sorry, but it’s out of the question,” said Dr. Joe firmly. “When
the boy’s parents come back, I’ll talk to them, and--”
“The one day!” said she. “Lave him stop here with ye the one day!”
“I can’t do it. I’m sorry, but--”
She came a step forward, with a look of piteous entreaty on her wrinkled
face.
“The one day, doctor dear!” she cried. “Ye’ll do that for an ould woman!
He’s fed. He’ll need no more till I’ll come for him at six o’clock. All
o’ thim tellin’ me what a grand, kind man ye were, at all--and me ould
enough to be yer mother!”
“I can’t!” said Dr. Joe, very much distressed. “It’s ridiculous!”
“Sure, what trouble will it be for yer honor?” she pleaded. “An’ Frankie
only the small young child he is--just wantin’ to watch ye! Lave him
come with ye the one day, doctor dear! His father’ll--”
“No!” shouted Dr. Joe. “Sorry! Can’t!”
He made a rush for the dining room and closed the door behind him.