HIS FIRST CLIENT.
Peter sat in his office, one hot July day, two years after his arrival,
writing to his mother. He had but just returned to New York, after a
visit to her, which had left him rather discouraged, because, for the
first time, she had pleaded with him to abandon his attempt and return
to his native town. He had only replied that he was not yet prepared to
acknowledge himself beaten; but the request and his mother’s
disappointment had worried him. While he wrote came a knock at the
door, and, in response to his “come in,” a plain-looking laborer
entered and stood awkwardly before him.
“What can I do for you?” asked Peter, seeing that he must assist the
man to state his business.
“If you please, sir,” said the man, humbly, “it’s Missy. And I hope
you’ll pardon me for troubling you.”
“Certainly,” said Peter. “What about Missy?”
“She’s—the doctor says she’s dying,” said the man, adding, with a
slight suggestion of importance, blended with the evident grief he
felt: “Sally, and Bridget Milligan are dead already.”
“And what can I do?” said Peter, sympathetically, if very much at sea.
“Missy wants to see you before she goes. It’s only a child’s wish, sir,
and you needn’t trouble about it. But I had to promise her I’d come and
ask you. I hope it’s no offence?”
“No.” Peter rose, and, passing to the next room, took his hat, and the
two went into the street together.
“What is the trouble?” asked Peter, as they walked.
“We don’t know, sir. They were all took yesterday, and two are dead
already.” The man wiped the tears from his eyes with his shirtsleeve,
smearing the red brick dust with which it was powdered, over his face.
“You’ve had a doctor?”
“Not till this morning. We didn’t think it was bad at first.”
“What is your name?”
“Blackett, sir—Jim Blackett.”
Peter began to see daylight. He remembered both a Sally and Matilda
Blackett.—That was probably “Missy.”
A walk of six blocks transferred them to the centre of the tenement
district. Two flights of stairs brought them to the Blackett’s rooms.
On the table of the first, which was evidently used both as a kitchen
and sitting-room, already lay a coffin containing a seven-year-old
girl. Candles burned at the four corners, adding to the bad air and
heat. In the room beyond, in bed, with a tired-looking woman tending
her, lay a child of five. Wan and pale as well could be, with
perspiration standing in great drops on the poor little hot forehead,
the hand of death, as it so often does, had put something into the face
never there before.
“Oh, Mister Peter,” the child said, on catching sight of him, “I said
you’d come.”
Peter took his handkerchief and wiped the little head. Then he took a
newspaper, lying on a chair, twisted it into a rude fan, and began
fanning the child as he sat on the bed.
“What did you want me for?” he asked.
“Won’t you tell me the story you read from the book? The one about the
little girl who went to the country, and was given a live dove and real
flowers.”
Peter began telling the story as well as he could remember it, but it
was never finished. For while he talked another little girl went to the
country, a far country, from which there is no return—and a very
ordinary little story ended abruptly.
The father and mother took the death very calmly. Peter asked them a
few questions, and found that there were three other children, the
eldest of whom was an errand boy, and therefore away. The others, twin
babies, had been cared for by a woman on the next floor. He asked about
money, and found that they had not enough to pay the whole expenses of
the double funeral.
“But the undertaker says he’ll do it handsome, and will let the part I
haven’t money for, run, me paying it off in weekly payments,” the man
explained, when Peter expressed some surprise at the evident needless
expense they were entailing on themselves.
While he talked, the doctor came in.
“I knew there was no chance,” he said, when told of the death. “And you
remember I said so,” he added, appealing to the parents.
“Yes, that’s what he said,” responded the father.
“Well,” said the doctor, speaking in a brisk, lively way peculiar to
him, “I’ve found what the matter was.”
“No?” said the mother, becoming interested at once.
“It was the milk,” the doctor continued. “I thought there was something
wrong with it, the moment I smelt it, but I took some home to make
sure.” He pulled a paper out of his pocket. “That’s the test, and Dr.
Plumb, who has two cases next door, found it was just the same there.”
The Blacketts gazed at the written analysis, with wonder, not
understanding a word of it. Peter looked too, when they had satisfied
their curiosity. As he read it, a curious expression came into his
face. A look not unlike that which his face had worn on the deck of the
“Sunrise.” It could hardly be called a change of expression, but rather
a strengthening and deepening of his ordinary look.
“That was in the milk drunk by the children?” he asked, placing his
finger on a particular line.
“Yes,” replied the doctor. “The milk was bad to start with, and was
drugged to conceal the fact. These carbonates sometimes work very
unevenly, and I presume this particular can of milk got more than its
share of the doctoring.
“There are almost no glycerides,” remarked Peter, wishing to hold the
doctor till he should have had time to think.
“No,” said the doctor. “It was skim milk.”
“You will report it to the Health Board?” asked Peter.
“When I’m up there,” said the doctor. “Not that it will do any good.
But the law requires it”
“Won’t they investigate?”
“They’ll investigate too much. The trouble with them is, they
investigate, but don’t prosecute.”
“Thank you,” said Peter. He shook hands with the parents, and went
upstairs to the fourth floor. The crape on a door guided him to where
Bridget Milligan lay. Here preparations had gone farther. Not merely
were the candles burning, but four bottles, with the corks partly
drawn, were on the cold cooking stove, while a wooden pail filled with
beer, reposed in the embrace of a wash-tub, filled otherwise with ice.
Peter asked a few questions. There was only an elder brother and
sister. Patrick worked as a porter. Ellen rolled cigars. They had a
little money laid up. Enough to pay for the funeral. “Mr. Moriarty gave
us the whisky and beer at half price,” the girl explained incidentally.
“Thank you, sir. We don’t need anything.” Peter rose to go. “Bridget
was often speaking of you to us. And I thank you for what you did for
her.”
Peter went down, and called next door, to see Dr. Plumb’s patients.
These were in a fair way for recovery.
“They didn’t get any of the milk till last night,” the gray-haired,
rather sad-looking doctor told him, “and I got at them early this
morning. Then I suspected the milk at once, and treated them
accordingly. I’ve been forty years doing this sort of thing, and it’s
generally the milk. Dr. Sawyer, next door, is a new man, and doesn’t
get hold quite as quick. But he knows more of the science of the thing,
and can make a good analysis.”
“You think they have a chance?”
“If this heat will let up a bit” said the doctor, mopping his forehead.
“It’s ninety-eight in here; that’s enough to kill a sound child.”
“Could they be moved?”
“To-morrow, perhaps.”
“Mrs. Dooley, could you take your children away to the country
to-morrow, if I find a place for you?”
“It’s very little money I have, sir.”
“It won’t cost you anything. Can you leave your family?”
“There’s only Moike. And he’ll do very well by himself,” he was told.
“Then if the children can go, be ready at 10:15 to-morrow, and you
shall all go up for a couple of weeks to my mother’s in Massachusetts.
They’ll have plenty of good food there,” he explained to the doctor,
“grass and flowers close to the house and woods not far away.”
“That will fix them,” said the doctor.
“About this milk. Won’t the Health Board punish the sellers?” Peter
asked.
“Probably not,” he was told “It’s difficult to get them to do anything,
and at this season so many of them are on vacations, it is doubly hard
to make them stir.”
Peter went to the nearest telegraph, and sent a dispatch to his mother.
Then he went back to his office, and sitting down, began to study his
wall. But he was not thinking of a pair of slate-colored eyes. He was
thinking of his first case. He had found a client.