STARTING MARRIED LIFE
FOR two weeks Kate threw herself into the business of teaching with all
her power. She succeeded in so interesting herself and her pupils that
she was convinced she had done a wise thing. Marriage did not interfere
with her teaching; she felt capable and independent so long as she had
her salary. George was working and working diligently, to prepare for
winter, whenever she was present or could see results. With her first
month's salary she would buy herself a warm coat, a wool suit, an extra
skirt for school, and some waists. If there was enough left, she would
have another real hat. Then for the remainder of the year she would
spend only for the barest necessities and save to help toward a home
something like Nancy Ellen's. Whenever she thought of Nancy Ellen and
Robert there was a choking sensation in her throat, a dull ache where
she had been taught her heart was located.
For two weeks everything went as well as Kate hoped: then Mrs. Holt
began to show the results of having been partially bottled up, for the
first time in her life. She was careful to keep to generalities which
she could claim meant nothing, if anything she said was taken up by
either George or Kate. George was too lazy to quarrel unless he was
personally angered; Kate thought best to ignore anything that did not
come in the nature of a direct attack. So long as Mrs. Holt could not
understand how some folks could see their way to live off of other
folks, or why a girl who had a chance to marry a fortune would make
herself a burden to a poor man, Kate made the mistake of ignoring her.
Thus emboldened she soon became personal. It seemed as if she spent
her spare time and mental force thinking up suggestive, sarcastic
things to say, where Kate could not help hearing them. She paid no
attention unless the attack was too mean and premeditated; but to her
surprise she found that every ugly, malicious word the old woman said
lodged in her brain and arose to confront her at the most inopportune
times--in the middle of a recitation or when she roused enough to turn
over in her bed at night. The more vigorously she threw herself into
her school work, the more she realized a queer lassitude, creeping over
her. She kept squaring her shoulders, lifting her chin, and brushing
imaginary cobwebs from before her face.
The final Friday evening of the month, she stopped at the post office
and carried away with her the bill for her Leghorn hat, mailed with
nicely conceived estimate as to when her first check would be due.
Kate visited the Trustee, and smiled grimly as she slipped the amount
in an envelope and gave it to the hack driver to carry to Hartley on
his trip the following day. She had intended all fall to go with him
and select a winter headpiece that would be no discredit to her summer
choice, but a sort of numbness was in her bones; so she decided to wait
until the coming week before going. She declined George's pressing
invitation to go along to Aunt Ollie's and help load and bring home a
part of his share of their summer's crops, on the ground that she had
some work to prepare for the coming week.
Then Kate went to her room feeling faint and heavy. She lay there most
of the day, becoming sorrier for herself, and heavier every passing
hour. By morning she was violently ill; when she tried to leave her
bed, dizzy and faint. All day she could not stand. Toward evening, she
appealed to George either to do something for her himself, or to send
for the village doctor. He asked her a few questions and then,
laughing coarsely, told her that a doctor would do her no good, and
that it was very probable that she would feel far worse before she felt
better. Kate stared at him in dumb wonder.
"But my school!" she cried. "My school! I must be able to go to
school in the morning. Could that spring water have been infected with
typhus? I've never been sick like this before."
"I should hope not!" said George. And then he told her bluntly what
caused her trouble. Kate had been white to begin with, now she slowly
turned greenish as she gazed at him with incredulous eyes. Then she
sprang to her feet.
"But I can't be ill!" she cried. "I can't! There is my school! I've
got to teach! Oh, what shall I do?"
George had a very clear conception of what she could do, but he did not
intend to suggest it to her. She could think of it, and propose it
herself. She could not think of anything at that minute, because she
fainted, and fell half on the bed, half in his arms as he sprang to
her. He laid her down, and stood a second smiling triumphantly at her
unheeding face.
"Easy snap for you this winter, Georgie, my boy!" he muttered. "I
don't see people falling over each other to get to you for professional
services, and it's hard work anyway. Zonoletics are away above the
head of these country ignoramuses; blue mass and quinine are about
their limit."
He took his time to bathe Kate's face. Presently she sat up, then fell
on the pillow again.
"Better not try that!" warned George. "You'll hurt yourself, and you
can't make it. You're out of the game; you might as well get used to
it."
"I won't be out of the game!" cried Kate. "I can't be! What will
become of my school? Oh, George, could you possibly teach for me, only
for a few days, until I get my stomach settled?"
"Why, I'd like to help you," he said, "but you see how it is with me.
I've got my fall work finished up, and I'm getting ready to open my
office next week. I'm going to rent that nice front room over the post
office."
"But, George, you must," said Kate. "You've taught several terms.
You've a license. You can take it until this passes. If you have
waited from June to October to open your office, you can wait a few
more days. Suppose you OPEN the office and patients don't come, or we
haven't the school; what would we LIVE on? What would I buy things
with, and pay doctor bills?"
"Why didn't you think of that before you got married? What was your
rush, anyway? I can't figure it to save my soul," he said.
"George, the school can't go," she cried. "If what you say is true,
and I suspect it is, I must have money to see me through."
"Then set your wits to work and fix things up with your father," he
said casually.
Kate arose tall and straight, standing unwaveringly as she looked at
him in blazing contempt.
"So?" she said. "This is the kind of man you are? I'm not so helpless
as you think me. I have a refuge. I know where to find it. You'll
teach my school until I'm able to take it myself, if the Trustee and
patrons will allow you, or I'll sever my relations with you as quickly
as I formed them. You have no practice; I have grave doubts if you can
get any; this is our only chance for the money we must have this
winter. Go ask the Trustee to come here until I can make arrangements
with him."
Then she wavered and rolled on the bed again. George stood looking at
her between narrowed eyelids.
"Tactics I use with Mother don't go with you, old girl," he said to
himself. "Thing of fire and tow, stubborn as an ox; won't be pushed a
hair's breadth; old Bates over again--alike as two peas. But I'll
break you, damn you, I'll break you; only, I WANT that school. Lots
easier than kneading somebody's old stiff muscles, while the money is
sure. Oh, I go after the Trustee, all right!"
He revived Kate, and telling her to keep quiet, and not excite herself,
he explained that it was a terrible sacrifice to him to put off opening
his office any longer; she must forgive him for losing self-control
when he thought of it; but for her dear sake he would teach until she
was better--possibly she would be all right in a few days, and then she
could take her work again. Because she so devoutly hoped it, Kate made
that arrangement with the Trustee. Monday, she lay half starved, yet
gagging and ill, while George went to teach her school. As she
contemplated that, she grew sicker than she had been before. When she
suddenly marshalled all the facts she knew of him, she stoutly refused
to think of what Nancy Ellen had said; when she reviewed his character
and disposition, and thought of him taking charge of the minds of her
pupils, Kate suddenly felt she must not allow that to happen, she must
not! Then came another thought, even more personal and terrible, a
thought so disconcerting she mercifully lost consciousness again.
She sent for the village doctor, and found no consolation from her talk
with him. She was out of the school; that was settled. No harpy ever
went to its meat with one half the zest Mrs. Holt found in the
situation. With Kate so ill she could not stand on her feet half the
time, so ill she could not reply, with no spirit left to appeal to
George, what more could be asked? Mrs. Holt could add to every
grievance she formerly had, that of a sick woman in the house for her
to wait on. She could even make vile insinuations to Kate, prostrate
and helpless, that she would not have dared otherwise. She could
prepare food that with a touch of salt or sugar where it was not
supposed to be, would have sickened a well person. One day George came
in from school and saw a bowl of broth sitting on a chair beside Kate's
bed.
"Can't you drink it?" he asked. "Do, if you possibly can," he urged.
"You'll get so weak you'll be helpless."
"I just can't," said Kate. "Things have such a sickening, sweetish
taste, or they are bitter, or sour; not a thing is as it used to be. I
simply can't!"
A curious look crept over George's face. He picked up the bowl and
tasted the contents. Instantly his face went black; he started toward
the kitchen. Kate heard part of what happened, but she never lifted
her head. After a while he came back with more broth and a plate of
delicate toast.
"Try this," he said. "I made it myself."
Kate ate ravenously.
"That's good!" she cried.
"I'll tell you what I'm going to do," he said. "I'm going to take you
out to Aunt Ollie's for a week after school to-night. Want to go?"
"Yes! Oh, yes!" cried Kate.
"All right," he said. "I know where I can borrow a rig for an hour.
Get ready if you are well enough, if you are not, I'll help you after
school."
That week with Aunt Ollie remained a bright spot in Kate's memory. The
October days were beginning to be crisp and cool. Food was different.
She could sleep, she could eat many things Aunt Ollie knew to prepare
especially; soon she could walk and be outdoors. She was so much better
she wrote George a note, asking him to walk out and bring her sewing
basket, and some goods she listed, and in the afternoons the two women
cut and sewed quaint, enticing little garments. George found Kate so
much better when he came that he proposed she remain another week.
Then for the first time he talked to her about her theory of government
and teaching, until she realized that the School Director had told him
he was dissatisfied with him--so George was trying to learn her ways.
Appalled at what might happen if he lost the school, Kate made notes,
talked at length, begged him to do his best, and to come at once if
anything went wrong. He did come, and brought the school books so she
went over the lessons with him, and made marginal notes of things
suggested to her mind by the text, for him to discuss and elucidate.
The next time he came, he was in such good spirits she knew his work
had been praised, so after that they went over the lessons together
each evening. Thinking of what would help him also helped fill her day.
He took her home, greatly improved, in much better spirits, to her
room, cleaned and ready for winter, with all of her things possible to
use in place, so that it was much changed, prettier, and more
convenient. As they drove in she said of him: "George, what about it?
Did your mother purposely fix my food so I could not eat it?"
"Oh, I wouldn't say that," he said. "You know neither of you is
violently attached to the other. She'll be more careful after this,
I'm sure she will."
"Why, have you been sick?" asked Kate as soon as she saw Mrs. Holt.
She seemed so nervous and appeared so badly Kate was sorry for her; but
she could not help noticing how she kept watch on her son. She seemed
to keep the width of the room and a piece of furniture between them,
while her cooking was so different that it was not in the least
necessary for George to fix things for Kate himself, as he had
suggested. Everything was so improved, Kate felt better. She began to
sew, to read, to sit for long periods in profound thought, then to take
walks that brought back her strength and colour. So through the winter
and toward the approach of spring they lived in greater comfort. With
Kate's help, George was doing so well with the school that he was
frequently complimented by the parents. That he was trying to do good
work and win the approval of both pupils and parents was evident to
Kate. Once he said to her that he wondered if it would be a good thing
for him to put in an application for the school the coming winter.
Kate stared at him in surprise: "But your profession," she objected.
"You should be in your office and having enough practice to support us
by then."
"Yes, I should!" he said. "But this is a new thing, and you know how
these clodhoppers are."
"If I came as near living in the country, and worked at farming as much
as you do, that's the last thing I would call any human being," said
Kate. "I certainly do know how they are, and what I know convinces me
that you need not look to them for any patients."
"You seem to think I won't have any from any source," he said hotly.
"I confess myself dubious," said Kate. "You certainly are, or you
wouldn't be talking of teaching."
"Well, I'll just show you!" he cried.
"I'm waiting," said Kate. "But as we must live in the meantime, and it
will be so long before I can earn anything again, and so much expense,
possibly it would be a good idea to have the school to fall back on, if
you shouldn't have the patients you hope for this summer. I think you
have done well with the school. Do your level best until the term
closes, and you may have a chance."
Laughing scornfully, he repeated his old boast: "I'll just show you!"
"Go ahead," said Kate. "And while you are at it, be generous. Show me
plenty. But in the meantime, save every penny you can, so you'll be
ready to pay the doctor's bills and furnish your office."
"I love you advice; it's so Batesy," he said. "I have money saved for
both contingencies you mention, but I'll tell you what I think, and
about this I'm the one who knows. I've told you repeatedly winter is
my best time. I've lost the winter trying to help you out; and I've
little chance until winter comes again. It takes cold weather to make
folks feel what ails their muscles, and my treatment is mostly
muscular. To save so we can get a real start, wouldn't it be a good
idea for you to put part of your things in my room, take what you must
have, and fix Mother's bedroom for you, let her move her bed into her
living room, and spare me all you can of your things to fix up your
room for my office this summer. That would save rent, it's only a few
steps from downtown, and when I wasn't busy with patients, I could be
handy to the garden, and to help you."
"If your mother is willing, I'll do my share," said Kate, "although the
room's cramped, and where I'll put the small party when he comes I
don't know, but I'll manage someway. The big objection to it is that
it will make it look to people as if it were a makeshift, instead of
starting a real business."
"Real," was the wrong word. It was the red rag that started George
raging, until to save her self-respect, Kate left the room. Later in
the day he announced that his mother was willing, she would clean the
living room and move in that day. How Kate hated the tiny room with
its one exterior wall, only one small window, its scratched woodwork,
and soiled paper, she could not say. She felt physically ill when she
thought of it, and when she thought of the heat of the coming summer,
she wondered what she would do; but all she could do was to acquiesce.
She made a trip downtown and bought a quart of white paint and a few
rolls of dainty, fresh paper. She made herself ill with turpentine
odours in giving the woodwork three coats, and fell from a table almost
killing herself while papering the ceiling. There was no room for her
trunk; the closet would not hold half her clothes; her only easy chair
was crowded out; she was sheared of personal comfort at a clip, just at
a time when every comfort should have been hers. George ordered an
operating table, on which to massage his patients, a few other
necessities, and in high spirits, went about fixing up his office and
finishing his school. He spent hours in the woodshed with the
remainder of Kate's white paint, making a sign to hang in front of the
house.
He was so pathetically anxious for a patient, after he had put his
table in place, hung up his sign, and paid for an announcement in the
county paper and the little Walden sheet, that Kate was sorry for him.
On a hot July morning Mrs. Holt was sweeping the front porch when a
forlorn specimen of humanity came shuffling up the front walk and asked
to see Dr. Holt. Mrs. Holt took him into the office and ran to the
garden to tell George his first patient had come. His face had been
flushed from pulling weeds, but it paled perceptibly as he started to
the back porch to wash his hands.
"Do you know who it is, Mother?" he asked.
"It's that old Peter Mines," she said, "an' he looks fit to drop."
"Peter Mines!" said George. "He's had about fifty things the matter
with him for about fifty years."
"Then you're a made man if you can even make him think he feels enough
better so's he'll go round talking about it," said Mrs. Holt, shrewdly.
George stood with his hands dripping water an instant, thinking deeply.
"Well said for once, old lady," he agreed. "You are just exactly
right."
He hurried to his room, and put on his coat.
"A patient that will be a big boom for me," he boasted to Kate as he
went down the hall.
Mrs. Holt stood listening at the hall door. Kate walked around the
dining room, trying to occupy herself. Presently cringing groans began
to come from the room, mingling with George's deep voice explaining,
and trying to encourage the man. Then came a wild shriek and then
silence. Kate hurried out to the back walk and began pacing up and
down in the sunshine. She did not know it, but she was praying.
A minute later George's pallid face appeared at the back door: "You
come in here quick and help me," he demanded.
"What's the matter?" asked Kate.
"He's fainted. His heart, I think. He's got everything that ever
ailed a man!" he said.
"Oh, George, you shouldn't have touched him," said Kate.
"Can't you see it will make me, if I can help him! Even Mother could
see that," he cried.
"But if his heart is bad, the risk of massaging him is awful," said
Kate as she hurried after George.
Kate looked at the man on the table, ran her hand over the heart
region, and lifted terrified eyes to George.
"Do you think--?" he stammered.
"Sure of it!" she said, "but we can try. Bring your camphor bottle,
and some water," she cried to Mrs. Holt.
For a few minutes, they worked frantically. Then Kate stepped back.
"I'm scared, and I don't care who knows it," she said. "I'm going after
Dr. James."
"No, you are not!" cried George. "You just hold yourself. I'll have
him out in a minute. Begin at his feet and rub the blood up to his
heart."
"They are swollen to a puff, he's got no circulation," said Kate. "Oh,
George, how could you ever hope to do anything for a man in this shape,
with MUSCULAR treatment?"
"You keep still and rub, for God's sake," he cried, frantically. "Can't
you see that I am ruined if he dies on this table?"
"No, I can't," said Kate. "Everybody would know that he was
practically dying when he came here. Nobody will blame you, only, you
never should have touched him! George, I AM going after Dr. James."
"Well, go then," he said wildly.
Kate started. Mrs. Holt blocked the doorway.
"You just stop, Missy!" she cried. "You're away too smart, trying to
get folks in here, and ruin my George's chances. You just stay where
you are till I think what to do, to put the best face on this!"
"He may not be really gone! The doctor might save him!" cried Kate.
Mrs. Holt looked long at the man.
"He's deader 'an a doornail," she said. "You stay where you are!"
Kate picked her up by the shoulders, set her to one side, ran from the
room and down the street as fast as possible. She found the doctor in
his office with two patients. She had no time to think or temporize.
"Get your case and come to our house quick, doctor," she cried. "An old
man they call Peter Mines came to see George, and his heart has failed.
Please hurry!"
"Heart, eh?" said the doctor. "Well, wait a minute. No use to go
about a bad heart without digitalis."
He got up and put on his hat, told the men he would be back soon, and
went to the nearest drug store. Kate followed. The men who had been
in the office came also.
"Doctor, hurry!" she panted. "I'm so frightened."
"You go to some of the neighbours, and stay away from there," he said.
"Hurry!" begged Kate. "Oh, do hurry!"
She was beside him as they sped down the street, and at his shoulder as
they entered the room. With one glance she lurched against the casing
and then she plunged down the hall, entered her room, closed the door
behind her, and threw herself on the bed. She had only a glance, but in
that glance she had seen Peter Mines sitting fully clothed, his hat on
his head, his stick in his hands, in her easy chair; the operating
table folded and standing against the wall; Mrs. Holt holding the
camphor bottle to Peter's nose, while George had one hand over Peter's
heart, the other steadying his head.
The doctor swung the table in place, and with George's help laid Peter
on it, then began tearing open his clothes. As they worked the two men
followed into the house to see if they could do anything and excited
neighbours began to gather. George and his mother explained how Peter
had exhausted himself walking two miles from the country that hot
morning, how he had entered the office, tottering with fatigue, and had
fallen in the chair in a fainting condition. Everything was plausible
until a neighbour woman, eager to be the centre of attention for a
second, cried: "Yes, we all see him come more'n an hour ago; and when
he begin to let out the yells we says to each other, 'THERE! George
has got his first patient, sure!' An' we all kind of waited to see if
he'd come out better."
The doctor looked at her sharply: "More than an hour ago?" he said.
"You heard cries?"
"Yes, more'n a good hour ago. Yes, we all heard him yell, jist once,
good and loud!" she said.
The doctor turned to George. Before he could speak his mother
intervened.
"That was our Kate done the yellin'," she said. "She was scart crazy
from the start. He jest come in, and set in the chair and he's been
there ever since."
"You didn't give him any treatment, Holt?" asked the doctor.
Again Mrs. Holt answered: "Never touched him! Hadn't even got time to
get his table open. Wa'n't nothing he could 'a' done for him anyway.
Peter was good as gone when he got here. His fool folks never ought
'a' let him out this hot day, sick as he was."
The doctor looked at George, at his mother, long at Peter. "He surely
was too sick to walk that far in this heat," he said. "But to make
sure, I'll look him over. George, you help me. Clear the room of all
but these two men."
HE began minutely examining Peter's heart region. Then he rolled him
over and started to compress his lungs. Long white streaks marked the
puffy red of the swollen, dropsical flesh. The doctor examined the
length of the body, and looked straight into George Holt's eyes.
"No use," he said. "Bill, go to the 'phone in my office, and tell
Coroner Smith to get here from Hartley as soon as he can. All that's
left to do here is to obey the law, and have a funeral. Better some of
the rest of you go tell his folks. I've done all I can do. It's up to
the Coroner now. The rest of you go home, and keep still till he
comes."
When he and George were left alone he said tersely: "Of course you and
your mother are lying. You had this man stripped, he did cry out, and
he did die from the pain of the treatment you tried to give him, in his
condition. By the way, where's your wife? This is a bad thing for her
right now. Come, let's find her and see what state she is in."
Together they left the room and entered Kate's door. As soon as the
doctor was busy with her, George slipped back into the closed room,
rolled Peter on his back and covered him, in the hope that the blood
would settle until it would efface the marks of his work before the
Coroner arrived. By that time the doctor was too busy to care much
what happened to Peter Mines; he was a poor old soul better off as he
was. Across Kate's unconscious body he said to George Holt: "I'm
going to let the Coroner make what he pleases out of this, solely for
your wife's sake. But two things: take down that shingle. Take it
down now, and never put it up again if you want me to keep still. I'll
give you what you paid for that table. It's a good one. Get him out
as soon as you can. Set him in another room. I've got to have Mrs.
Holt where I can work. And send Sarah Nepple here to help me. Move
fast! This is going to be a close call. And the other thing: I've
heard you put in an application for our school this winter. Withdraw
it! Now move!"
So they set Peter in the living room, cleaned Kate's room quickly, and
moved in her bed. By the time the Coroner arrived, the doctor was too
busy to care what happened. On oath he said a few words that he hoped
would make life easier for Kate, and at the same time pass muster for
truth; told the Coroner what witnesses to call; and gave an opinion as
to Peter's condition. He also added that he was sure Peter's family
would be very glad he was to suffer no more, and then he went back to
Kate who was suffering entirely too much for safety. Then began a long
vigil that ended at midnight with Kate barely alive and Sarah Nepple,
the Walden mid-wife, trying to divide a scanty wardrobe between a pair
of lusty twins.