GRACE'S malarial attack was soon repulsed, but the memory of
that Sunday chill remained vivid. So Grace followed the Doctor's
instructions as carefully as if she were an invalid on the brink of the
grave, and she compelled Philip also to heed the counsel of precaution
which Doctor Taggess had given to both. From that time forward she
took personal sympathetic interest in all malarial victims of whom
she heard, especially in those who purchased from the great stock of
proprietary medicines in Somerton's store. Not infrequently a farmer
or villager would be seized by a chill while talking or transacting
business in the store, and Grace, despite her own experience in a warm
room and under many woollen coverings, could scarcely help begging him
to accept the loan of heavy shawls from the store's stock, and to sit
undisturbed by the fire in the back room. When she planned a Sunday
dinner, at which Doctor Taggess and his wife were to be guests, it
was partly for the purpose of questioning the Doctor about the origin
of malaria, and of its peculiarities, which seemed almost as numerous
as cases; but Philip assured her that busy doctors, like other men of
affairs, hated nothing so much as to "talk shop" out of business hours.
Fortunately she gradually became too busy to have time in which to
become a monomaniac on malaria. The specimen organ arrived, and
was placed in the church, to the great edification of the people.
Grace was for a time the only performer, but to prepare relief for
herself, improve the quality of the congregational singing, and not
without an eye to business, she organized an evening music class,
and quickly trained several young women to play some of the simpler
hymn-tunes,--and also to purchase organs on the instalment plan.
From music lessons to dress-making is a far cry, but the fame of the
purple and "Scare-Cow" dress had pervaded the county, and all the
girls wanted dresses like it, which was somewhat embarrassing after the
stock of the two calicoes had been exhausted. Then there arose a demand
for something equally lovely, pretty, nice, sweet, or scrumptious,
according to the vocabulary of the demander, and Eastern jobbers of
calicoes and other prints and cheap dress-goods were one day astonished
to receive from "Philip Somerton, late Jethro Somerton," a request for
a full line of samples--the first request of the sort from that portion
of the state. To be able to ask in a store, "How would you make this
up?" and to get a satisfying answer, was a privilege which not even the
most hopeful women of Claybanks had ever dared to expect, so the "truck
trade" of the town and county--the business that came of women carrying
eggs, butter, chickens, feathers, etc., to the stores to barter for
goods--drifted almost entirely to Somerton's store, and caused John
Henry Bustpodder, a matter-of-fact German merchant on the next block,
to say publicly that if his wife should die he would shut up the store
and leave it shut till he could get to New York and marry a shopgirl.
By midspring Grace had quite as few idle moments as her husband
or Caleb; for between housekeeping, music-teaching, talking with
commercial travellers, and selling goods, she seldom found time to
enjoy the horse and buggy that Philip had bought for her, and she often
told her husband, in mock complaint, that she worked longer hours than
she had ever done in New York, and that she really must have an advance
of pay if he did not wish her to transfer her abilities and customers
to some rival establishment. Yet she enjoyed the work; she had a keen
sense of humor, which sharpened the same sense in others, and when
women were at the counter, she frequently found excuse to start a
chorus of laughter. To her husband, a customer was merely a customer;
to Grace he was frequently a character, and she had seen so few
characters in the course of her New York experiences that she rejoiced
in the change. She was sympathetic, too, so the younger women talked to
her of much besides "truck" and goods. When one day a country matron
rallied her on being without children, another matron exclaimed, "She's
second mother to half the gals in the county"--a statement which Grace
repeated to Philip in great glee, following it with a demure question
as to the advisability of living up to her new dignity by taking to
spectacles and sun-bonnets.
But in her sober moments, and sometimes in the hurry of business,
a spectre of malaria would suddenly intrude upon her thoughts.
Occasionally she saw cases of rheumatism, rickets, helpless limbs,
twitching faces, and other ailments that caused her heart to ache,
and prompted her to ask the cause. The answers were various:
"malary"--"fever an' ager"--"malarier"--"chills"--"malaria," but the
meanings were one. One day she burst in an instant from laughter into
tears at seeing a babe, not a year old, shaking violently with a chill.
Straightway Grace went to the minister--poor minister!--and demanded
to know how the Lord could permit so dreadful an occurrence. One day,
after engaging Doctor Taggess in general conversation, she abruptly
said, despite Philip's reminder that physicians dislike "shop talk":--
"I wish you would tell me all about malaria; what it is, and where it
comes from, and why we don't get rid of it."
"My dear woman," the Doctor replied, "ask me about electricity, of
which no one knows much, and I can tell you something, but malaria is
beyond my ken. I know it when I see it in human nature; that is, I
treat almost all diseases as if they were malarial, and I seldom find
myself mistaken, but, beyond that, malaria is beyond my comprehension."
"But, Doctor, it must be something, and come from somewhere."
"Oh, yes. 'Tis generally admitted that malaria is due to an invisible
emanation from the soil, and is probably a product of vegetation in a
certain stage of decay. It seems to be latent in soil that has not been
exposed to the air for some time,--such as that thrown from cellars
and wells in process of excavation,--and all swamps are believed to be
malaria breeders; for when the swamp land of a section is drained, the
malarial diseases of the vicinity disappear."
"Then why aren't all swamps drained?"
"Because the work would be too expensive, in the sections where the
swamps are, I suppose. Look at this township, for example: while all
the ground is open,--that is, not frozen,--the farmers and other people
have all they can do at planting, cultivating, harvesting, etc. Swamp
land makes the richest soil, after it has been drained, but who's going
to drain his own swamp when he already has more good land than he can
cultivate? Some of the farmers work at it, a little at a time, but it
is slow work,--discouragingly slow,--besides being frightfully hard and
disgustingly dirty."
"Then why doesn't the government do it?"
"I thought you'd come to that, for every woman's a socialist at heart
until she learns better. Still, so is every man. Well, governments have
no money of their own; all they have is taken from the people, in the
form of taxes, and any increase of taxes, especially for jobs as large
as swamp drainage in this state, would be too unpopular to be voted.
Besides, while it would be of general benefit to the many, it would
specially and greatly benefit the owners of the swamp land, which would
start a frightful howl. Private enterprise may be depended upon to
banish swamps and malaria; but first there must be enough population,
and enough increase in the value of land, to justify it. I wish 'twould
do so in this county and in my day. 'Twould lessen my income, but
'twould greatly increase my happiness, for doctors have hearts. By the
way, have you yet heard from Caleb on malaria as a means of grace?
There's a chance to learn something about malaria--to hear something
about it, at least; for Caleb talks well on his pet subjects. Poor
fellow, I wish I could cure his chronic malarial troubles. I've tried
everything, and he does enjoy far better health than of old, but the
cause of the trouble remains. That man came of tall, broad-shouldered
stock on both sides--you wouldn't imagine it, would you, to look at
him? He's always been industrious and intelligent; everybody likes him
and respects him; but at times it's almost impossible to extract an
idea or even a word from him--all on account of malaria. Again, he'll
have the clearest, cleverest head in town. Seems strange, doesn't it?"
Grace improved an early opportunity to say to Caleb that perhaps she
had done wrong in recovering so quickly from her attack of chills, for
she had been told that he regarded malaria as a means of grace.
"Well, yes, I do--'bout the same way as some other things--air, an'
light, an' food, an' money, for instance. Anythin' that helps folks
to make the most of their opportunities can be a means of grace; when
it isn't, the folks themselves are the trouble. Reckon nobody'll
dispute that about good things. But when it comes to things that ain't
popular,--like floods, an' light'nin'-strokes, an' malary,--well, folks
don't seem to see it in the same light, and they suspect the malary
most, 'cause it's far an' away the commonest. I've been laughed at so
often for my notions on the subject that I've got hardened to it, an'
don't mind standin' it again."
"Oh, Caleb! Please don't say that! You don't believe I would laugh at
anything you're earnest about, do you?"
"Well, I don't really b'lieve you would, an' I'm much 'bliged to you
for it. You see, my idee is this. You remember what's said, in one
of the psalms, about they that go down to the sea in ships, and what
happens to them when a big wind comes up--how they are at their wit's
end, because they're in trouble too big for them to manage, so they
have to call unto the Lord?--somethin' that sailors ain't b'lieved
to be given to doin' over an' above much, judgin' by their general
conversation as set down in books an' newspapers. Well, malary's like
the wind, an' the spirit that's compared with it; you can't tell where
it's comin' from, or when, or how long it's goin' to stay, or what
it'll do before it goes. It puts a man face to face with his Maker, an'
just when the man can't put on airs, no matter how hard he tries. I
think anythin' that kicks a man into seein' his dependence on heaven is
a means of grace, even if the man's too mean to take advantage of it.
When a man's shakin' with a chill that's come at him on the sly, as a
chill always does, an' finds all his grit an' all the doctor's medicine
can't keep him from shakin'--snatches him clean away from his own grip,
which is the awfullest feelin' a man can have--"
"You're entirely right about it, Caleb," said Grace, with a shudder.
"Thank you, but 'taint only the shake. It's not knowin' how the thing
is goin' to come out, or how helpless it's goin' to make one, or in
what way it's goin' to upset all his plans an' calculations--why, it
teaches absolute dependence on a higher power, an' 'tisn't only folks
that make most fuss 'bout it in church that feels it. After one gets
that feelin', he's lots more of a man than he ever was before. I think
malary has been the makin' of human nature out West here, an' in some
parts of the East too. Why, do you know that almost every one of our
greatest Presidents was born or brought up in malary-soaked country?
Washington was, I know; for I had chills all over his part of Virginia,
in war time, an' more'n a hundred thousand other men kept me comp'ny
at it. Jackson, Lincoln, Grant, was some of the other Presidents that
knowed malary better than they afterwards knowed their own Cabinets. As
to smaller men, but mighty big, nevertheless--all the big cities of the
land's full of 'em. Look up the record of a city's great business man,
an' I'm told you'll find he never was born an' raised there, but in the
back country somewhere, generally out West, an' nine times in ten can
tell you more 'bout his ager spells than you care to hear. Still, such
cases don't bear on the subject o' means o' grace, though they come
from the same causes. Out in these parts malary does more'n ministers
to fill the churches. So long as men feel first-rate, they let the
church alone mighty hard, but just let 'em get into a hard tussle with
malary an' they begin to come to meetin'. The worse it treats 'em, the
more they come, which is just what they need. That's the way the church
got me; though that ain't particularly to the p'int, for one swaller
don't make a summer. But I've been watchin' the signs for twenty year,
an' I'm not gettin' off guess-work when I say that malary's been one
of the leadin' means o' grace in this great Western country, an' of
pretty much ev'rythin' else that's worth havin'; the states that have
most of it produce more good people to the thousan' than any other
states, besides more great men, an' great ideas, an' first-class
American grit. Now you can laugh if you feel the least bit like it."
"I don't, Caleb. But do answer me one question. If malaria has done so
much good, and is doing it, do you think it ought to be preserved,--say
as an American institution?"
"Well," said Caleb, "ev'rythin' an' ev'rybody, from Moses an' manna to
Edison an' electricity, has had a mission, an' when the work was done,
the mission took a rest an' gave somethin' else the right o' way. When
malary's accomplished its mission, I, for one, would like to assist in
layin' it away. I think I'm entitled to a share in the job, for malary
an' me has been powerful close acquaintances for a mighty long time."