leaves on her way, and stopped at the brook, where she pulled up some
bits of a strange water-weed, and made them into a damp, round bundle
with the leaves and a bit of string. This was a rare plant which they
had both noticed the day before, and they had taken some specimens
then, Nan being at this time an ardent botanist, but these had
withered and been lost, also, on the way home.
Dr. Leslie was in even less of a hurry than usual, and when he came
out he looked very much pleased. "I never was more thankful in my
life," he said eagerly, as soon as he was within convenient distance.
"That poor fellow was at death's door yesterday, and when I saw his
wife and little children, and thought his life was all that stood
between them and miserable destitution, it seemed to me that I _must_
save it! This morning he is as bright as a dollar, but I have been
dreading to go into that house ever since I left it yesterday noon.
They didn't in the least know how narrow a chance he had. And it isn't
the first time I have been chief mourner. Poor souls! they don't dread
their troubles half so much as I do. He will have a good little farm
here in another year or two, it only needs draining to be excellent
land, and he knows that." The doctor turned and looked back over the
few acres with great pleasure. "Now we'll go and see about old Mrs.
Willet, though I don't believe there's any great need of it. She
belongs to one of two very bad classes of patients. It makes me so
angry to hear her cough twice as much as need be. In your practice,"
he continued soberly, "you must remember that there is danger of
giving too strong doses to such a sufferer, and too light ones to the
friends who insist there is nothing the matter with them. I wouldn't
give much for a doctor who can't see for himself in most cases, but
not always,--not always."
The doctor was in such a hospitable frame of mind that nobody could
have helped telling him anything, and happily he made an excellent
introduction for Nan's secret by inquiring how she had got on with her
studies, but she directed his attention to the wet plants in the
bottom of the carriage, which were complimented before she said, a
minute afterward, "Oh, I wonder if I shall make a mistake? I was
afraid you would laugh at me, and think it was all nonsense."
"Dear me, no," replied the doctor. "You will be the successor of Mrs.
Martin Dyer, and the admiration of the neighborhood;" but changing his
tone quickly, he said: "I am going to teach you all I can, just as
long as you have any wish to learn. It has not done you a bit of harm
to know something about medicine, and I believe in your studying it
more than you do yourself. I have always thought about it. But you are
very young; there's plenty of time, and I don't mean to be hurried;
you must remember that,--though I see your fitness and peculiar
adaptability a great deal better than you can these twenty years yet.
You will be growing happier these next few years at any rate, however
impossible life has seemed to you lately."
"I suppose there will be a great many obstacles," reflected Nan, with
an absence of her usual spirit.
"Obstacles! Yes," answered Dr. Leslie, vigorously. "Of course there
will be; it is climbing a long hill to try to study medicine or to
study anything else. And if you are going to fear obstacles you will
have a poor chance at success. There are just as many reasons as you
will stop to count up why you should not do your plain duty, but if
you are going to make anything of yourself you must go straight ahead,
taking it for granted that there will be opposition enough, but doing
what is right all the same. I suppose I have repeated to you fifty
times what old Friend Meadows told me years ago; he was a great
success at money-making, and once I asked him to give me some advice
about a piece of property. 'Friend Leslie,' says he, 'thy own opinion
is the best for thee; if thee asks ten people what to do, they will
tell thee ten things, and then thee doesn't know as much as when thee
set out,'" and Dr. Leslie, growing very much in earnest, reached
forward for the whip. "I want you to be a good woman, and I want you
to be all the use you can," he said. "It seems to me like stealing,
for men and women to live in the world and do nothing to make it
better. You have thought a great deal about this, and so have I, and
now we will do the best we can at making a good doctor of you. I don't
care whether people think it is a proper vocation for women or not. It
seems to me that it is more than proper for you, and God has given you
a fitness for it which it is a shame to waste. And if you ever
hesitate and regret what you have said, you won't have done yourself
any harm by learning how to take care of your own health and other
people's."
"But I shall never regret it," said Nan stoutly. "I don't believe I
should ever be fit for anything else, and you know as well as I that I
must have something to do. I used to wish over and over again that I
was a boy, when I was a little thing down at the farm, and the only
reason I had in the world was that I could be a doctor, like you."
"Better than that, I hope," said Dr. Leslie. "But you mustn't think it
will be a short piece of work; it will take more patience than you are
ready to give just now, and we will go on quietly and let it grow by
the way, like your water-weed here. If you don't drive a little
faster, Sister Willet may be gathered before we get to her;" and this
being a somewhat unwise and hysterical patient, whose recovery was not
in the least despaired of, Dr. Leslie and his young companion were
heartlessly merry over her case.
The doctor had been unprepared for such an episode; outwardly, life
had seemed to flow so easily from one set of circumstances to the
next, and the changes had been so gradual and so natural. He had
looked forward with such certainty to Nan's future, that it seemed
strange that the formal acceptance of such an inevitable idea as her
studying medicine should have troubled her so much.
Separated as he was from the groups of men and women who are
responsible for what we call the opinion of society, and independent
himself of any fettering conventionalities, he had grown careless of
what anybody might say. He only hoped, since his ward had found her
proper work, that she would hold to it, and of this he had little
doubt. The girl herself quickly lost sight of the fancied difficulty
of making the great decision, and, as is usually the case, saw all the
first objections and hindrances fade away into a dim distance, and
grow less and less noticeable. And more than that, it seemed to her as
if she had taken every step of her life straight toward this choice of
a profession. So many things she had never understood before, now
became perfectly clear and evident proofs that, outside her own
preferences and choices, a wise purpose had been at work with her and
for her. So it all appeared more natural every day, and while she knew
that the excitement and formality of the first very uncomfortable day
or two had proved her freedom of choice, it seemed the more impossible
that she should have shirked this great commission and trust for which
nature had fitted her.
XIII
A STRAIGHT COURSE
The next year or two was spent in quiet life at home. It was made
evident that, beside her inclination and natural fitness for her
chosen work, our student was also developing the other most important
requisite, a capacity for hard study and patient continuance. There
had been as little said as possible about the plan, but it was not
long before the propriety of it became a favorite subject of
discussion. It is quite unnecessary, perhaps, to state that everybody
had his or her own opinion of the wisdom of such a course, and both
Dr. Leslie and his ward suffered much reproach and questioning, as the
comments ranged from indignation to amusement. But it was as true of
Nan's calling, as of all others, that it would be her own failure to
make it respected from which any just contempt might come, and she had
thrown herself into her chosen career with such zeal, and pride, and
affectionate desire to please her teacher, that the small public who
had at first jeered or condemned her came at last to accepting the
thing as inevitable and a matter of course, even if they did not
actually approve. There was such a vigorous determination in the minds
of the doctor and his pupil that Nan should not only be a doctor but a
good one, that anything less than a decided fitness for the profession
would have doomed them both to disappointment, even with such
unwearied effort and painstaking. In the earlier years of his practice
Dr. Leslie had been much sought as an instructor, but he had long
since begun to deny the young men who had wished to be his students,
though hardly one had ever gone from the neighborhood of Oldfields who
did not owe much to him for his wise suggestions and practical help.
He patiently taught this eager young scholar day by day, and gave her,
as fast as he could, the benefit of the wisdom which he had gained
through faithful devotion to his business and the persistent study of
many years. Nan followed step by step, and, while becoming more
conscious of her own ignorance and of the uncertainties and the laws
of the practice of medicine with every week's study, knew better and
better that it is resource, and bravery, and being able to think for
one's self, that make a physician worth anything. There must be an
instinct that recognizes a disease and suggests its remedy, as much as
an instinct that finds the right notes and harmonies for a composer of
music, or the colors for a true artist's picture, or the results of
figures for a mathematician. Men and women may learn these callings
from others; may practice all the combinations until they can carry
them through with a greater or less degree of unconsciousness of brain
and fingers; but there is something needed beside even drill and
experience; every student of medicine should be fitted by nature with
a power of insight, a gift for his business, for knowing what is the
right thing to do, and the right time and way to do it; must have this
God-given power in his own nature of using and discovering the
resources of medicine without constant reliance upon the books or the
fashion. Some men use their ability for their own good and renown, and
some think first of the good of others, and as the great poet tells
the truths of God, and makes other souls wiser and stronger and fitter
for action, so the great doctor works for the body's health, and tries
to keep human beings free from the failures that come from neglect and
ignorance, and ready to be the soul's instrument of action and service
in this world. It is not to keep us from death, it is no superstitious
avoidance of the next life, that should call loudest for the
physician's skill; but the necessity of teaching and remedying the
inferior bodies which have come to us through either our ancestors'
foolishness or our own. So few people know even what true and complete
physical life is, much less anything of the spiritual existence that
is already possible, and so few listen to what the best doctors are
trying their best to teach. While half-alive people think it no wrong
to bring into the world human beings with even less vitality than
themselves, and take no pains to keep the simplest laws of health, or
to teach their children to do so, just so long there will be plenty of
sorrow of an avoidable kind, and thousands of shipwrecked, and
failing, and inadequate, and useless lives in the fullest sense of the
word. How can those who preach to the soul hope to be heard by those
who do not even make the best of their bodies? but alas, the
convenience and easiness, or pleasure, of the present moment is
allowed to become the cause of an endless series of terrible effects,
which go down into the distance of the future, multiplying themselves
a thousandfold.
The doctor told Nan many curious things as they drove about together:
certain traits of certain families, and how the Dyers were of strong
constitution, and lived to a great age in spite of severe illnesses
and accidents and all manner of unfavorable conditions; while the
Dunnells, who looked a great deal stronger, were sensitive, and
deficient in vitality, so that an apparently slight attack of disease
quickly proved fatal. And so Nan knew that one thing to be considered
was the family, and another the individual variation, and she began
to recognize the people who might be treated fearlessly, because they
were safe to form a league with against any ailment, being responsive
to medicines, and straightforward in their departure from or return to
a state of health; others being treacherous and hard to control; full
of surprises, and baffling a doctor with their feints and follies of
symptoms; while all the time Death himself was making ready for a
last, fatal siege; these all being the representatives of types which
might be found everywhere. Often Dr. Leslie would be found eagerly
praising some useful old-fashioned drugs which had been foolishly
neglected by those who liked to experiment with newer remedies and be
"up with the times," as they called their not very intelligent
dependence upon the treatment in vogue at the moment among the younger
men of certain cliques, to some of whom the brilliant operation was
more important than its damaging result. There was, even in those
days, a haphazard way of doctoring, in which the health of the patient
was secondary to the promotion of new theories, and the young scholar
who could write a puzzlingly technical paper too often outranked the
old practitioner who conquered some malignant disorder single-handed,
where even the malpractice of the patient and his friends had stood
like a lion in the way.
But Dr. Leslie was always trying to get at the truth, and nobody
recognized more clearly the service which the reverent and truly
progressive younger men were rendering to the profession. He added
many new publications to his subscription list, and gleaned here and
there those notes which he knew would be helpful, and which were
suited to the degree of knowledge which his apprentice had already
gained. It is needless to say what pleasure it gave him, and what
evening talks they had together; what histories of former victories
and defeats and curious discoveries were combined, like a bit of
novel-reading, with Nan's diligent devotion to her course of study.
And presently the girl would take a step or two alone, and even make a
visit by herself to see if anything chanced to be needed when a case
was progressing favorably, and with the excuse of the doctor's
business or over-fatigue. And the physicians of the neighboring towns,
who came together occasionally for each other's assistance, most of
whom had known Nan from her childhood, though at first they had shrunk
from speaking of many details of their professional work in her
hearing, and covered their meaning, like the ostriches' heads, in the
sand of a Latin cognomen, were soon set at their ease by Nan's
unconsciousness of either shamefacedness or disgust, and one by one
grew interested in her career, and hopeful of her success.
It is impossible to describe the importance of such experiences as
these in forming the character of the young girl's power of resource,
and wealth of self-reliance and practical experience. Sometimes in
houses where she would have felt at least liberty to go only as
spectator and scholar of medicine, Dr. Leslie insisted upon
establishing her for a few days as chief nurse and overseer, and
before Nan had been at work many months her teacher found her of great
use, and grew more proud and glad day by day as he watched her
determination, her enthusiasm, and her excellent progress. Over and
over again he said to himself, or to her, that she was doing the work
for which nature had meant her, and when the time came for her to go
away from Oldfields, it seemed more impossible than it ever had before
that he should get on without her, at home, or as an independent human
being, who was following reverently in the path he had chosen so many
years before. For her sake he had reached out again toward many
acquaintances from whom he had drifted away, and he made many short
journeys to Boston or to New York, and was pleased at his hearty
welcome back to the medical meetings he had hardly entered during so
many years. He missed not a few old friends, but he quickly made new
ones. He was vastly pleased when the younger men seemed glad to hear
him speak, and it was often proved that either through study or
experience he had caught at some fresh knowledge of which his
associates were still ignorant. He had laughingly accused himself of
being a rusty country doctor and old fogy who had not kept up with the
times; but many a letter followed him home, with thanks for some
helpful suggestion or advice as to the management of a troublesome
case. He was too far away to give room for any danger of professional
jealousy, or for the infringement of that ever lengthening code of
etiquette so important to the sensitive medical mind. Therefore he
had only much pleasure and a fine tribute of recognition and honor,
and he smiled more than once as he sat in the quiet Oldfields study
before the fire, and looked up at Captain Finch's little ship, and
told Nan of his town experiences, not always omitting, though
attempting to deprecate, the compliments, in some half-hour when they
were on peculiarly good terms with each other. And Nan believed there
could be no better doctor in the world, and stoutly told him so, and
yet listened only half-convinced when he said that he had a great mind
to go to town and open an office, and make a specialty of treating
diseases of the heart, since everybody had a specialty nowadays. He
never felt so ready for practice as now, but Nan somehow could not
bear the thought of his being anywhere but in his home. For herself,
she would have been ready to venture anything if it would further her
ever-growing purpose; but that Dr. Leslie should begin a new career or
contest with the world seemed impossible. He was not so strong as he
used to be, and he was already famous among his fellows. She would
help him with his work by and by even more than now, and her own
chosen calling of a country doctor was the dearer to her, because he
had followed it so gallantly before her loving and admiring eyes. But
Dr. Leslie built many a castle in the air, with himself and a great
city practice for tenants, and said that it would be a capital thing
for Nan; she could go on with it alone by and by. It was astonishing
how little some of the city doctors knew: they relied upon each other
too much; they should all be forced to drive over hill and dale, and
be knocked about in a hard country practice for eight or ten years
before they went to town. "Plenty of time to read their books in June
and January," the doctor would grumble to himself, and turn to look
fondly at the long rows of his dear library acquaintances, his
Braithwaites and Lancets, and their younger brothers, beside the first
new Sydenham Society's books, with their clumsy blot of gilding. And
he would stand sometimes with his hands behind him and look at the
many familiar rows of brown leather-covered volumes, most of them
delightfully worn with his own use and that of the other physicians
whose generous friend and constant instructor he had been through
years of sometimes stormy but usually friendly intercourse and
association.
When people in general had grown tired of discussing this strange
freak and purpose of the doctor and his ward, and had become familiar
with Nan's persistent interest and occupation in her studies, there
came a time of great discontent to the two persons most concerned. For
it was impossible to disguise the fact that the time had again come
for the girl to go away from home. They had always looked forward to
this, and directed much thought and action toward it, and yet they
decided with great regret upon setting a new train of things in
motion.
While it was well enough and useful enough that Nan should go on with
her present mode of life, they both had a wider outlook, and though
with the excuse of her youthfulness they had put off her departure as
long as possible, still almost without any discussion it was decided
that she must enter the medical school to go through with its course
of instruction formally, and receive its authority to practice her
profession. They both felt that this held a great many unpleasantnesses
among its store of benefits. Nan was no longer to be shielded and
protected and guided by some one whose wisdom she rarely questioned,
but must make her own decisions instead, and give from her own bounty,
and stand in her lot and place. Her later school-days were sure to be
more trying than her earlier ones, as they carried her into deeper
waters of scholarship, and were more important to her future position
before the public.
If a young man plans the same course, everything conspires to help him
and forward him, and the very fact of his having chosen one of the
learned professions gives him a certain social preëminence and
dignity. But in the days of Nan's student life it was just the
reverse. Though she had been directed toward such a purpose entirely
by her singular talent, instead of by the motives of expediency which
rule the decisions of a large proportion of the young men who study
medicine, she found little encouragement either from the quality of
the school or the interest of society in general. There were times
when she actually resented the prospect of the many weeks which she
must spend in listening to inferior instruction before gaining a
diploma, which was only a formal seal of disapproval in most persons'
eyes. And yet, when she remembered her perfect certainty that she was
doing the right thing, and remembered what renown some women
physicians had won, and the avenues of usefulness which lay open to
her on every side, there was no real drawing back, but rather a proud
certainty of her most womanly and respectable calling, and a reverent
desire to make the best use possible of the gifts God had certainly
not made a mistake in giving her. "If He meant I should be a doctor,"
the girl told herself, "the best thing I can do is to try to be a good
one."
So Nan packed her boxes and said good-by to Mrs. Graham, who looked
wistful and doubtful, but blessed her most heartily, saying she should
miss her sadly in the winter. And Marilla, who had unexpectedly
reserved her opinion of late, made believe that she was very busy in
the pantry, just as she had done when Nan was being launched for
boarding-school. She shook her own floury hands vigorously, and
offered one at last, muffled in her apron, and wished our friend good
luck, with considerable friendliness, mentioning that she should be
glad if Nan would say when she wrote home what shapes they seemed to
be wearing for bonnets in the city, though she supposed they would be
flaunting for Oldfields anyway. The doctor was going too, and they
started for the station much too early for the train, since Dr. Leslie
always suffered from a nervous dread of having an unavoidable summons
to a distant patient at the last moment.