The last roses of summer were bursting their topmost buds into full
bloom on the lawn of the Doctor's bungalow. The martins that built each
year in the little boxes he had set on poles around his garden were
circling and chattering far up in the sapphire skies of a late September
day. Their leaders had sensed the coming frost and were drilling for
their long march across the world to their winter home. The chestnut
burrs were bursting in the woods. The silent sun-wrapped Indian Summer
had begun. Not a cloud flecked the skies.
A quiet joy filled the soul of the woman who smiled and heard her
summons.
“You are not afraid?” the Doctor asked.
She turned her grateful eyes to his.
“The peace of God fills the world--and I owe it all to you.”
“Nonsense. Your sturdy will and cultivated mind did the work. I merely
made the suggestion.”
“You are not going to give me an anesthetic, are you?” she said evenly.
“Why did you ask that?”
“Because I wish to feel and know the pain and glory of it all.”
“You don't wish to take it?”
“Not unless you say I should.”
“What a wonderful patient you are, child! What a beautiful spirit!” He
looked at her intently. “Well, I'm older and wiser in experience than
you. I'm glad you added that clause `unless you say I should.' I'm going
to say it. After all my talks to you on our return to the truths and
simplicity of Nature you are perhaps surprised. You needn't be. I'm
going to put you into a gentle sleep. Nature will then do her physical
work automatically. I do this because our daughters are the inheritors
of the sins of their mothers for centuries. The over-refinement of
nerves, the hothouse methods of living, and the maiming of their bodies
with the inventions of fashion have made the pains of this supreme hour
beyond endurance. This should not be. It will not be so when our race
has come into its own. But it will take many generations and perhaps
many centuries before we reach the ideal. No physician who has a soul
could permit a woman of your physique, your culture and refinement to
walk barefoot and blindfolded into such a hell of physical torture. I
will not permit it.”
He walked quietly into his laboratory, prepared the sleeping powders and
gave them to her.
Six hours later she opened her eyes with eager wonder. Aunt Abbie was
busy over a bundle of fluffy clothes. The Doctor was standing with his
arms folded behind his back, his fine, clean-shaven face in profile
looking thoughtfully over the sun-lit valley. There was just one moment
of agonized fear. If they had failed! If her child were hideous--or
deformed! Her lips moved in silent prayer.
“Doctor?” she whispered.
In a moment he was bending over her, a look of exaltation in his brown
eyes.
“Tell me quick!”
“A wonderful boy, little mother! The most beautiful babe I have ever
seen. He didn't even cry--just opened his big, wide eyes and grunted
contentedly.”
“Give him to me.”
Aunt Abbie laid the warm bundle in her arms and she pressed it gently
until the sweet, red flesh touched her own. She lay still for a moment,
a smile on her lips.
“Lift him and let me look!”
“What a funny little pug nose,” she laughed.
“Yes--exactly like his mother's!” the Doctor replied.
She gazed with breathless reverence.
“He is beautiful, isn't he?” she sighed.
“And you have observed the chin and mouth?”
“Exactly like yours. It's wonderful!”