WILD OATS
Ominous thunder-clouds rolled over the city. Supper was over and the
late light was vanishing yellow in all directions. It had been the
sultriest day of the summer. In the gasping humid air death fell
broadcast over the city--touching the puny tenement babies, slaying the
horses in the baking gutter, everywhere striking the weak. Seventeen
cases of sunstroke were listed in the evening papers. Four million
people were held as by hands in a moist oven, and were tortured alive.
All the city cried out for relief--everywhere the prayer went up for
rain.
And now as Doctor Rast sat at the window in his shirtsleeves and as
Nell listlessly tried to sew, the flying yellow light was in the
street, people struggled dimly through it, and there were muffled
mutterings of thunder in the distance.
“Are you getting any air there?” asked the Doctor.
“Oh, I’m all right!” She put down her sewing. “But don’t you think we
ought to bring Davy in here? It’s too hot in the bedroom.”
“Cooler there than here,” muttered the Doctor. “Is he asleep?”
“Yes.” Nell smiled as mentally she saw him. “Fast asleep, poor boy. The
day half-killed him!”
The Doctor sighed.
“Nell, think of all the miserable wretches in the city to-night. The
poor, the poor! The bad milk, the stenchant smothering tenements, the
dead babies! Think of all the misery, all the misery and pain of this
strange world. Why is it? Why is it?”
Nell said nothing, but thought of green hills and cool-waved ocean, and
her little son caught in the stone city. Sharply then, making the room
vivid, came a flash of lightning followed by a crash as of the house
collapsing. Nell leaped up.
“Davy’ll wake! He’ll be terribly frightened!”
She hurried out into the shadows of the inner rooms.
The Doctor sat back, full of a bitter mood. It seemed as if Nature
were ready to utterly crush her children to-night. All day she had
drained them of strength and heart; now she was venomous and wrathful,
and loosened down upon them. A shape passed in the street the Doctor
thought he knew and a moment later there was a knock on the door.
The Doctor had not the heart to put on his coat. He arose anxiously,
stepped to the door and flung it open. Frank stood before him.
“Who is it? Frank Lasser?”
“Yes, Doctor.”
“Come in--there’s nothing the matter?”
“Oh, nothing--nothing much!”
He followed the Doctor in. Neither cared much for the other; it was a
bad evening; and Frank, besides, was lonely. For the wild-rose was on
the mountain pastures--infinities away.
The Doctor moodily pushed an armchair next the desk, and Frank sank
into it. Then the Doctor lit the light low, and sat down.
“How’s Edith?”
“Edith?” Frank spoke with a touch of feeling. “She’s away, Doctor--off
in the mountains for a week. I’m glad of it--this weather.”
“Yes,” the Doctor muttered, “it’s a bad day for people.”
Frank cleared his throat. He found difficulty in beginning. He spoke in
a low voice:
“Doctor.”
“Yes.”
“I thought I’d drop in----”
“That’s all right.”
“About myself.”
“Yourself? Under the weather?”
“Well,” Frank laughed strangely, “not exactly. You see we’re to be
married in a little over a week.”
The Doctor leaned near, and spoke tenderly:
“I’m glad to hear it--I’m really glad to hear it. It’ll make _her_
happy. I’m mightily glad, Lasser.”
There was a pause; Frank gathered his courage.
“Doctor.”
“Yes.”
“I’ve been told a man ought to be looked over before he’s married.”
“Right!”
“Well----” he paused, “I know it ain’t your office hours--but could you
now?”
“Of course! of course!”
He arose and deliberately locked the door, closed the shutters, and
turned the light higher.
* * * * *
A little while later, Frank, leaning forward in his chair, watched the
Doctor peering with wrinkled face into the microscope. There was a
flash of lightning bursting even through the shutters and a dreadful
booming of thunder. The Doctor felt the lightning in his heart. He
thought of the wild-rose; he thought of this young man before him. For
some time he could not speak. It seemed too awful.
Then Frank burst out:
“Well, Doc.”
The Doctor looked up and spoke under his breath:
“You’ve had your fun, Lasser, haven’t you?”
“Yes,” Frank tried to speak lightly, “I’ve sown my wild oats. I’ve gone
around with the boys a bit.”
The Doctor leaned close.
“When did you first get this?”
“Oh, about four years ago--a woman out West.”
“Who treated you?”
“Some old chap--read his ad in the paper. Claimed I was cured for life.”
The Doctor’s voice cut sharp and awful, a knife of keen pain.
“Lasser, he never cured you.”
Frank could not believe his ears; he felt a great hand smiting him down.
“Never cured me?” he echoed; then anger swept him. “That’s rot.”
The Doctor leaned closer and spoke slowly, tapping the table:
“You are going to take my word in this. This thing has run on and
on--it’s become chronic. You were never cured.”
There was a silence; now the wild rain was rattling on pave and window.
“Lasser,” said the Doctor, “you will have to be treated again!”
Frank clutched the arms of his chair; his heart seemed to stop short;
his face was white.
“You mean,” his voice was hollow and strange, “I’ve got to be doped
five or six weeks again?”
“I’m afraid it will be more than that.”
“More than that?”
“It may take months----”
“Take months?”
“Lasser, I’ll tell you--you’ve got to know the whole truth. I can’t set
any time limit. It might run on a year.”
Frank gave a loud cry:
“A year?”
He half rose in his chair:
“My God--this horrible thing--this shame--But it’s nonsense!”
The Doctor gently pushed him down:
“You look this thing in the face, Lasser!”
Frank sat back, trembling. Oh, the sweet wild-rose! the dreams! the
gates of happiness! The Doctor, too, thought of Edith. His eyes grew
dim; he leaned near; he could barely speak the cruel truth, the killing
truth.
“You know what it means?”
“What?” groaned Frank.
“It means,” the Doctor spoke as if one word at a time, “that until you
are absolutely cured--you cannot marry.”
Frank sat forward, face contorted, lips twisted.
“You tell me why.”
In the rattle of rain, the white of lightning and the crash of thunder,
he heard the doom of the wild-rose. Her last kiss was still on his
lips; her arms about his neck.
“I’ll tell you,” said the Doctor, speaking as a father who had to hurt
his son, “because of Edith--Yes, even if you seem perfectly well--all
her life she may be an invalid--a broken woman--or even worse. And then
the children--your children, Edith’s children--possibly she may not
be able to have any, or if she has,” he paused, his voice was tragic,
“they may become blind. That,” he cried, “is what comes of sowing wild
oats. The harvest is ruined innocents, ruined women and children.”
Frank could not breathe or think; his brain seemed stunned. The world
was wild now, and lunatic.
“You mean to say----” he broke off and was silent.
A fearful roll of thunder shook the room. Frank gave a loud cry again;
he had to defend the deathless Past.
“Why--why--I only did what they all do----”
“_Not all!_” put in the Doctor.
“Then they do something as bad.”
“_Not all of them!_”
“Then they’re not human.”
“Perhaps.”
There was a pause, and the Doctor spoke in a far-away voice:
“The young men--they think they have to--they think it’s a physical
necessity. It’s not--the double-standard is a lie, a lie!”
The young man was caught in a trap; and so, a wild anger came to his
rescue. He struck the desk with his fist:
“Why, it’s crazy--it’s rot--a little thing like that--why, I’m all
right--I’m practically well--I know lots of men who get married----”
He stopped, face fearfully haggard, his body wet with sweat.
There was a stifling silence, through which rain poured, lightning
flashed, thunder rolled. The city was in the clutch of a mighty storm.
And then the Doctor, looking on this broken young man, and thinking
again of the wild-rose, felt his heart twisted with pain and pity. He
smiled sadly, leaned, and quietly took Frank’s hand in both of his.
“Frank.”
“Yes, Doctor.”
“For Edith’s sake”--his voice broke--“you are going to face this
terrible thing.”
Frank said nothing.
“For I know that you do not want to be as other men--go on sowing wild
oats--and ruin that sweet girl. Would you do that to her you love--love
so deeply?”
Frank looked away.
“Think of her--so wildly sweet, so pure, so fresh. She ought to be
happy, have her own home, her little children, and the good health
that fills the day with joy.”
The Doctor told Frank nothing new; with his own eyes he saw the
wild-rose; in his own heart he held her, held her and her very life.
Edith! And then the Doctor went on quietly:
“And if you and Edith had a little child--your own child--a little
living human being--your own baby--shall it go through life blind? Did
you ever see little blind children--so utterly pathetic, so lost in
darkness, groping and reaching and trying to play? The world is full of
such children. Shall your child be that way? Shall it?... Frank?”
Frank’s head sank. The Doctor went on tenderly:
“I’m telling you the whole truth--candidly, brutally--because there is
enough suffering and sorrow in this world, because enough women are
going through this moment in pain, because of _her_, Frank. Do you want
to make the world darker and unhappier? Is that the way you love Edith?”
Frank’s head sank on his arm on the desk. There came from him a low,
tearing cry:
“Doctor.”
The Doctor was silent a moment.
“Yes, Frank.”
“Doctor--_Doctor_!”
“Yes--Frank.”
“I can’t stand it--I can’t stand it!”
There was a silence again. Then suddenly the last few months swept like
a vision through Frank’s heart. He raised his flushed face and clenched
his fist.
“She’s been making a decent fellow of me--I was rotten before,
rotten--she’s making something of me--I’m all changed--and she--if you
knew how she loves me. Oh, I never knew any one could love like that!
God, and she’s so happy, you never saw a girl like it”--he suddenly
gave a cry--“our three little rooms, our home--_Doctor_!”
The Doctor leaned forward and spoke in a queer voice:
“Your three little rooms? Have you taken a flat?”
Frank put his hands to his face:
“It’s all ready! Everything’s ready!”
“You poor children,” murmured the Doctor.
Then Frank lifted his face, and cried hoarsely:
“Don’t you see? Don’t you understand? I can’t back out now! I can’t
hold this up! Everybody knows it--we’ve told all. What excuse could
I give? What reason? What can I tell Edith? Good God, do you think I
could tell her this? She’s a sweet, pure girl----”
“I think,” said the Doctor slowly, “she would understand. Women
understand where babies are involved.”
Frank blazed with anger:
“Don’t you speak of telling _her_! I won’t stand for it!” And then his
voice went wild again: “Just ask her to wait? to wait and wait? It
will break her heart. And all for what? Because I’m human, because I’m
human! Oh!”
His head sank down. The Doctor put an arm about him and drew him close.
“Frank”--his voice was pure with its tenderness, its compassion--“I
know. Life is a real danger, strong as dynamite, sharp as a
knife-blade--if we play with it, and that’s what sin is, we are apt to
be blown to pieces or slashed and stabbed. The world isn’t a stage and
all the men and women merely players--real blood flows, real torture
tears the heart, real hearts break, real death annihilates us. And only
a real man can grapple with this real life. Are you a real man, Frank?”
There was a silence again. And then Frank broke away from the Doctor
and rose and clenched his fist. His eyes had a dash of wildness in
them, his face trembled with passion.
“You want to break Edith’s heart--why, just when she is so happy and
I so changed--to have a thing like this happen. I’ll not bear it. I
don’t believe it. I’m well--don’t I feel all right? There’s nothing
the matter with me! I bet some other doctor---- It’s a matter of luck,
anyway, and I’ve been lucky, I’m always lucky. Why, no one could get
married if this were so. It’s tommy rot, it’s womanish. A man must go
ahead, he must risk something----”
“Yes,” the Doctor broke in quietly. “Himself. But are you going to risk
Edith, and Edith’s children?”
Frank came close to him and all the frenzy of his passion poured with
his voice:
“But I’m crazy for her--I must have her!”
The Doctor suddenly arose, a pain of hot anger in his heart. He seized
Frank by the arm and looked in his face:
“You dare to speak like that, Frank? I tell you you’re an irresponsible
boy yet--you’ve been playing, you’re a pleasure-seeker; you don’t know
what life means. You don’t know anything about pain and sorrow. You
haven’t suffered enough yet. You don’t understand women--women who bear
the burden of this world, the commonest in the street suffering pangs a
man can’t dream of, who make men of us, and men of little children, who
give themselves to us soul and body. And you would take a pure woman
and basely defile her, spoil her body, and darken her days and nights!
Frank, I tell you you’re a boy yet! Crazy for her! You must have her!
You shall not have her, not yet! It would be better if you went down to
the river to-night and threw yourself in!”
Frank stared at him, his face pale.
“How will you stop me?” he asked hoarsely.
“How stop you?” the Doctor spoke sharply. “I’ll have Nell speak to
Edith.”
“Speak--to--Edith?”
“Yes, Frank, she shall!”
Frank’s voice rose.
“I’m your patient--you’re sworn as a doctor not to tell your patient’s
secret--you’re sworn to it. I know what I know!”
The Doctor looked at him strangely.
“Frank,” he murmured slowly, “there are times for breaking even oaths.”
He dropped Frank’s arm and paced up and down the room. Wild was the
storm, shaking the room, dashing the panes with rain. Frank sank into
the chair, crumpled up in it. His face was fearfully white and looked
frightened. He kept wetting his lips together.
The Doctor took his seat again; his face was full of trouble; he gave
Frank a searching glance; he spoke very low.
“Frank.”
“What you want?”
“Frank,” he seized the young man’s hand again, “you’re in trouble, in
deep waters. Let’s be sensible. Let’s see this thing with both eyes.
You say that this love for Edith--this deep, great love for a sweet,
true girl--has been making a man of you, a woman of her. Then it hasn’t
been wasted; it’s worth while even to love--and lose. But you won’t
lose. Go away. Leave her; go traveling again. Go for a long while.
And this great love will go on working in your lives--you will be all
the better for it, all the nobler and happier, knowing that you have
sacrificed, sacrificed for her. And then, Frank, when the time comes,
you can offer her a true and a good man and be as happy as you dream.
You know Edith will wait for you--gladly, gladly!”
But Frank cried out sharply:
“It can’t be done! It’s too late! What if you were engaged--if you were
just at the gates of your happiness--if you had waited and waited for
this--if you loved as Edith and I love--if everyone knew--if your home
was all ready--could you break it off? Could you wait? Talk’s cheap.
But, think, it’s the happiest time of our life--such a time will never
come for Edith again. Oh,” he moaned, “it will break her heart.”
“Yes,” the Doctor went on softly, “but if you marry her now, Frank,
and troubles come thick and fast upon you, and the first bloom of
love fades off, and everything becomes commonplace, and your wife is
complaining and sickly, and there is a sick or a blind child, will you
be so crazy for her then? Will she be so happy then? You don’t know
what marriage means, how much it demands from a man and a woman, what
sacrifices, what service, what unselfishness. And then when you realize
that the fault is yours, and that it is too late to mend it--that you
have only made the world darker for your living in it, and visited your
sins on your children and on your wife, then you will wonder, Frank,
why you ever dreamed of marrying. Don’t talk to me of too late and
everyone knowing it and the shame. It’s not too late to save Edith and
Edith’s children. That’s the only thing to think of. Come, you’ll give
Edith up now; you’ll go away.”
Frank arose; his face struggled; he gulped as if he were strangling,
and the Doctor standing, thinking again of the wild-rose, gripped the
boy’s arms:
“Frank--Frank--tell me!”
“I can’t stand it,” said Frank. “I love her so.”
The Doctor leaned close to the boy.
“Love her more then--love her enough to save her--save her from you!”
Frank said nothing.
“Will you? Yes or no?”
And then Frank cried:
“Give me time to think. This has all come so of a sudden.” Then
suddenly he burst out: “It’s too late--it’s impossible--I’m well”--and
then he smiled haggardly and added--“give me time, Doctor.”
The Doctor smiled sadly:
“Take your own time, Frank. Go! Now you’re all right!”
Frank steadied himself, he was reeling like a drunkard. The Doctor, at
the door, leaned low:
“I only want you children happy. Edith is one of the loveliest I know.”
Frank nodded his head, gulped, the Doctor patted him on the back, and
then shut him out in the storm. He dashed into lightning.
Then the Doctor unlocked the other door and went back to his desk and
sat chin on palm. His mind seemed to deepen down into the very springs
and subterranean currents of life, all the mysteries of existence
closed over him like storm and heat. He felt himself mixed in with a
world of much agony and strife, and all was so real that it sent a pain
into the recesses of his heart. And then he thought of the wild-rose,
and all the wild-roses of this world, so early blighted, the sweet
possibilities unfulfilled. Truly the tragedy of this Earth is the
wasted possibilities!
Nell opened the door and came in carrying Davy in her arms. The little
fellow, in his nightdrawers, was staring curiously and was wide awake.
He pointed to his father.
“Thunder, daddy!” he cried.
The Doctor looked up with blinded eyes.
“Why, Morris,” Nell exclaimed, “you look like the end of the world!”
“Nell,” he muttered, “the misery and pain of this world! I’m sorry for
poor people, and I’m sorry for sick little children, and I’m sorry,
sorriest for the women. It seems as if they always had the raw end of
the deal!”
The storm drowned his voice.