“If you’re feeding a mean dog, be sure he’ll bite you when he’s had
enough.”
THE doctor let Emma tell him her own complete narrative of Jarlsen’s
mishap; nor did he interrupt once, save with questions that served as
a spur to her flagging memory. Her mode of recital was detailed and
feminine, obnoxious to science. She told, incidentally (but at great
length) how Jarlsen had always treated her; and quoted his sayings,
which were, in her retrospective judgment, prophetic. The doctor’s
manner was so courteous that a more experienced girl than Emma could
not have inferred that Jarlsen’s relations with her before the accident
would not strike his physician as indicative of his condition after it.
Dr. Brent had a sober, inscrutable smile; he gave the observer
an impression of seeing with great difficulty, although he wore
no glasses. His manner was at times indifferent, yet he inspired
confidence. As Jerry had said, “He don’t have to hustle to cure you,
like these farmin’ pill-men we hev to Soot City.”
Emma was so rapt in the first uninterrupted recital of her troubles
that she did not observe Quarry as he crossed the kitchen to the house
door. He had the wallet in his hand, which shook; his face twitched and
was chalk white.
“I hope that is not your father,” said Dr. Brent politely as he would
say: “There is a shower coming; I hope it may not wet you.”
Emma looked at him and liked him, for she saw that he knew at a glance
what Quarry was. And she had taken lessons in him for a lifetime and
had not learned him yet. Then the doctor rose and went into Jarlsen’s
room.
Waiting for the doctor’s opinion is one of the fearful things that
civilization has imposed on humanity. It is during such intervals of
suspense that a racked mind learns the pattern of the carpet, the
similarity in outline of some familiar pieces of furniture, and of some
impossible beast or bird sprawling on the wall papers. Emma discovered
stains in the sheer curtains at the window. She prayed in a general
way, and feared the moment when the doctor should appear again.
For the first time she observed that quite a crowd surrounded the
house, looking in at the windows. They wore long faces beneath their
eager eyes, and looked as though good news would be a (conversational)
calamity. Jerry Black, however, stood among them with the perfect
aspect of honest sympathy.
It was to him that Emma beckoned. He entered the house in response,
with an air of great importance. He had been telling half the town by
twos and threes, and as a great favour, exactly what he had said to Dr.
Brent. The town listened in the hope of hearing what Dr. Brent had said
to him.
Emma motioned him to stand close to her.
“When do you pay?” said she.
“’Most any time,” said Jerry. “You can pay the first day for a whole
set of visits, or you can pay when he sends a bill, or ’most anyway.”
“How can I tell how often he’s comin’?”
“He ain’t let pass that he’s comin’ more than this once, but you’ll
have to go high for this once. Think of the fares here and back; the
car money alone is twenty-five dollars, and not countin’ chair-cars or
meals.”
“Well, I’ll give him a hundred, and see how he likes that.”
“All right,” said Jerry; “you give it to him now. He’d be more likely
to come later, if he knew we pay before he can put hat on to go home.”
She had planned it all; the money should be put in his hand just as he
was leaving. She thought of no receipt, just as she thought of none for
the money she put in the plate on those delightful courtship Sundays.
Indeed, she felt the transactions to be similar.
She wanted to show, just as she had shown then, that though Jarlsen was
her man, he was no pauper. The bill was to be paid in the sight of the
surrounding multitude at the windows.
Presently Dr. Brent came out. He looked at the faces set in the window
frames, and made no comment. Emma realized, with hope full grown to
thankfulness, that had he felt there was nothing encouraging to say, he
would have dispersed the waiting men and women before he spoke.
“Miss Butte,” he said, “I’ve seen worse than he recover. His sight is
gone, sealed up with scorch; but he’ll hear again some day. Get him up
as soon as the smart goes.”
Some one in the window said, “He’ll make wages dead easy if he hears
again.”
“I’m glad,” said Dr. Brent, turning toward the window. “Encourage him
to work when the smart is over.”
He declined Emma’s offered meal, and prepared for departure, writing on
a bit of paper what he wished to have done for Jarlsen. When he rose,
hat in hand, Emma spoke to him. Her voice had a thrill of pride in it,
and her high spirit lent a dignity to the gaudy finery intended to
decorate her awkward frock.
“Doctor,” she said, “will you set a minute?”
She entered the lean-to, erect and elastic. Three minutes passed while
the crowd asked the doctor questions, which he answered in words of
such strangeness to their ears that they enjoyed all the sensations of
those who communicate with spirits. They laughed at his least word, and
he, perceiving it, darkened his sayings the further.
When Emma returned, her face was set and her cheeks flamed, so that
their heat alone drew the tears to her eyes. Her hands shook, and
hardly held the bit of soiled paper and the stumpy pencil that she
carried. “Will you tell me your name and address?” she asked of the
doctor.
A sigh broke from her lips that tried not to be a groan.
Black looked at her, and the colour flew from his face. He said
afterward that his heart beat so that he thought some one knocked on
the door. He knew what had happened.
So did the doctor. “My accounts are payable in May,” he said, being
kind, and knowing Soot City to be ignorant.
Emma smiled again, and, with the patronizing manner that is the outcome
of complete shyness, said, “Well, you’re a real good doctor.”
And so, with a slight constriction of his kindly heart, he shook her
hand and departed.
But she caught Black at his exit. “That Quarry’s stole!” said she.
Jerry looked sick and old; his voice sounded bitter. “I ain’t got a
cent just now to spare,” he said. Then he grew fiercer, and cursed the
Englishman exhaustively and with the awkwardness of a man unused to
such conversational indulgence.
The crowd followed as far as the funeral carriage and stood to watch it
disappear in billows of dust. The white horses and the black barouche
were alike buff before they were out of sight of The Tracks.
And in sullen quiet Emma set herself to wait for Quarry, not trusting
herself to look at Jarlsen lest the sight of him should soften her hate.
“He took the whole wallet!” she repeated to herself, “and he was the
only man August wouldn’t give to. He knew it, too, or he’d hev asked
something off him when first he seen we was settin’ it up together.”