CHAPTER XI

THROUGH THE GATE OF DREAMS

Much of the good fortune that has come to me has come unsought: Shortly

after returning home from Boston an elderly friend of our family, an

invalid who spent her winters in Florida, invited me to go there with

her. In my somewhat reduced state of health the invitation was most

opportune.

My first glimpse of New York, as we stopped there on the way, made

Boston seem small.

We started for the South at night. I was a bit timid at going so far

from home with the frail little old woman who had tuberculosis, and

already had had alarming hemorrhages, and who calmly told me that she

would probably die while in the South that winter. With only a kit

of medicines and my inexperience to cope with what might arise, I

felt rather helpless; but my patient had a stout heart and a cheery

disposition, and was soon enjoying my enthusiasm for experiences and

scenes which had become an old story to her.

We reached Palatka at sunset one night in February, so the calendar

said, but how soft and sweet the air! how like pictures every scene on

the street! The palm trees looked artificial, and the orange trees,

with both blossoms and fruit on them, reminded me of the toy trees

belonging to the Noah’s Ark with which I had played in childhood.

Darkies were everywhere, real darkies, with their soft voices and

shiftless ways. We had rooms in a fine old comfortable house with

a Southern family, and a typical Southern darkey to wait on us who

crooned Negro melodies as she lounged around and occasionally did a

stroke of work. Her deliberation and her dialect were most amusing.

When reminded that her tasks were still undone, she was always “jes’

a-fixin’ to begin to get ready” to do them.

Oh, the delight of the senses that first night under Florida skies!

I stepped out on the balcony into a moonlight such as I had never

before known--and the delicious odours, the caressing air, the outline

of those unfamiliar trees in the garden below! I heard the fountain,

and smelled the sulphur water as it trickled in the moonlight, and,

gazing on the dreaming view, was stirred by the soft, sensuous beauty

of the night. Something seemed to awaken in me: I was happy and sad:

lonely, yet wanting to be alone. It was as though something very

beautiful ought to happen; my heart seemed ready to burst with either

joy or sorrow, I hardly knew which. I suppose all the loveliness made

me homesick without knowing it; and that I also vaguely felt that

here, in all this sensuous beauty, life--my life--lacked something,

perhaps always would lack something--Juliet was on her balcony in the

moonlight, but only the roses were climbing to whisper to her; only the

fountain trickled to her half-formed thoughts.

At the hotel where we took our meals we made acquaintances, but

found none especially congenial. I could not sit on the veranda and

play cards, as most of the women did. There were no young people,

no children, and few books were accessible. On rainy days the time

dragged. Several little excursions on the St. John’s River, and down

Rice Creek, varied the monotony of visiting old plantations and

orange groves, and strolling along the quiet streets basking in the

sunshine. The indolent life was a welcome change after my arduous year

at the hospital, and for a time I was content to drift and dream. I

enjoyed most the evenings when, in the hotel parlour, my patient would

play on the piano. Her touch had a peculiar charm. She could bring

the men in from the office; the darkies from the kitchen would peer

in at the doors; people loitering on the street would come up on the

veranda; even the women would stop their stupid cards and furtively

wipe away the tears, as the frail little figure sat at the piano, and

the thin white fingers twinkled over the keys, playing “Ben Bolt,” “By

Bendermeer’s Stream,” “The Harp that Once Through Tara’s Halls,” and

a host of other ballads and dance-tunes. Sometimes she would sing a

ballad, and the pathos of her voice made one’s heart ache.

She always left the piano with liquid eyes and a delicate flush on her

cheek that made me apprehensive. Music stirred her so much that she

permitted herself to indulge in it but infrequently. How she loved life

and youth, and what a young heart she had to the last!

A coloured folks’ meeting which I attended there was like the things

one reads about: The preacher’s text was “Under a Palm Tree”; he

pronounced it “pam” tree, and nearly convulsed us with his big words

misapplied. An “experience meeting” followed. Beginning quietly, the

experiences and prayers gradually increased in fervour and unction till

finally the dusky worshippers were all on their knees--one eloquent

supplicant held forth in a lengthy, moving appeal, while the others

kept up a monotonous undertone--a weird, melodious sing-song, with

interjections of “Amen!” “Hallelujah!” and “Bless de Lawd!” as they

swayed and chanted in an abandonment of religious fervour.

At St. Augustine symptoms of “malaria,” which I had developed while in

Palatka, suddenly left me. (Our “Dr. Conrad” used to say scornfully,

“‘Malaria’ is simply a convenient term to express the unknown.”)

What invigoration! what skies! and the sea! Stealing away to the Sea

Wall and old Fort Marion, I would look far out across the waters

and dream--of what, I know not--just dream. Keen as was already my

realization that life is real and earnest, I was yet reluctant to pass

through “girlhood’s Gate of Dreams”; I well knew that on my return

North I must decide where I should begin to practise; must engage in

the work for which the preceding years had been preparing me; but there

on the old Sea Wall I could still hold back from the oncoming Future.

On our return we spent some delightful weeks in Washington; saw

hundreds of children on Easter Monday at their egg-rolling on the White

House lawn, and heard their united voices as they greeted President

Harrison when he came out to watch them, with Baby McKee in his arms.

In New York, we witnessed the splendid spectacle of the Washington

Centennial celebration; and then, in early May, returned to our little

village amid the drumlins.

Spectacles and parades have never much interested me, but, besides the

Washington Centennial parade, I recall one other (a few years later,

however) which stands out significantly, more especially because of

my own reactions to it. As a girl I had always been more moved by

history or fiction dealing with any other nationality than with my own.

When, as children, we had played at being Somebody Else, I chose to

be French, Scotch, German--anything but American! The romance of the

distant, the unattainable! In school I was never interested in American

history, but the history of Greece and Rome--what charm they had!

I actually believed myself wanting in patriotism--a Girl without a

Country--till, one summer when visiting in Buffalo, I saw a G. A. R.

parade. Parades as parades I abominated, but tried to show a polite

interest when my hostess, Dr. Thorndike, announced what good seats she

had been able to secure. I learned something about myself that day. I

had never supposed I would go across the street to see a president, but

when McKinley rode by, and I saw his kindly face and gracious responses

to the crowds’ salutes, something stirred within me. Suddenly I got a

conception of what it meant to be a president of a great republic. I

seemed to realize that it was a nation doing homage to its government,

as well as to its chief executive, when the cheers and huzzas greeted

our president. It was the first time I had ever thought of him or

another as _our_ President; it was really the first time I had felt

myself a part of our nation; and it was a thrilling awakening for

one who had always believed herself wanting in patriotism. What had

done it? Partly the sight of the army of soldiers, I suppose; but I

believe it was largely due to the way in which McKinley responded to

the greetings of the crowd. There was that in his manner which seemed

to say: “I am proud to be your servant; you appear to exalt me, but it

is our nation and the office that you exalt. I am one with you, and

will do my best to serve you, or rather, to conserve the honour and

interests of our nation.” Always after that, the thought of McKinley

was blended with gratitude that I was no longer a Girl without a

Country.

This stirring of patriotism when he rode by was a feeble forerunner of

what I felt later, when I saw on a banner the name of Cayuga County,

and of the Post from our home town--saw in the old soldiers the remnant

of the Company of which two of my uncles were a part. The faded,

tattered flag they carried stood to me for the one under which they

had marched away; and, though scrutinizing the ranks in vain for their

faces, still I knew the men marching past were among those with whom my

young uncles had gone to the front. I began to understand what Mother

had always felt when the soldiers had marched by on Decoration Day: she

would get away by herself, and, coming suddenly upon her, we would find

her weeping--the martial music and the sight always bringing back those

dreadful years when her young brothers went away to the War. My Buffalo

friends were surprised at the change in my attitude toward parades, for

before the day was over I grew enthusiastic enough to suit the most

exacting--and why not?--that day I was born an American!

An old schoolmate living in U---- had written me that there was a

good opening there for a woman physician, and as Father’s business

took him to that city every month or so, I decided to investigate the

possibilities there rather than in New England, where, personally, I

was more inclined to go. Accordingly, Father called on the leading

woman physician in U---- (herself a graduate of Boston University) and

reported her as eager to have me come and look the field over.

I had a long wait in Dr. Wyeth’s reception room that afternoon in

July, as there were many patients ahead of me. Each time she came out

and smilingly said “Next,” I scrutinized her to learn what manner of

woman she was. I saw a tall, well-built, middle-aged woman, rather

spare, of erect carriage, with a quick, nervous step. Her soft brown

hair was ’wavy and streaked with gray; she had clear blue eyes and a

fair skin with pink cheeks. Her face had a weary look, but her smile

was kind, and I noted her long, white, capable-looking hands. Quietly

distinctive in dress, she gave one the impression of being untrammelled

by her clothing, yet by no means unmindful of her appearance--there

were certain little touches that showed her feminine side, businesslike

as was her manner. On the whole I approved of her. She seemed to have

all the business capability of “Our Caddie” without her masculinity. I

saw her surrounded by evidences of prosperity; heard her spoken of as

a successful physician and a noble woman; and thought with admiration

and wonder, “Will the time ever come when I shall be a real woman

physician--established, successful, and as independent as is she?”

At length she ushered me into her private office, and our acquaintance

progressed rapidly. We liked each other instantly; she urged me to

come there; gave me sound advice; and prophesied advantages to us

both should I come. Practically alone, so far as sister physicians

were concerned, she craved one with whom she could affiliate, for

although there were three other women physicians in the city, one was

intemperate and impossible, one a “bluffer,” and the other, though

bright and well-educated, was so lacking in self-confidence as to be of

no practical help in consultation.

At the Doctor’s home that night I met her mother, who had one of the

sweetest faces I ever saw; it was framed in brown ringlets which hung

in a waterfall under her cap; her hair was less tinged with gray than

was her daughter’s--a sweet-souled woman, hospitable, with a good word

for everyone; a clinging nature that called out the protective instinct

in all who met her. I saw that the numerous relatives of the Doctor’s

leaned on her and looked to her as to an oracle, and that she lavishly

spent herself for them. It was “Dr. Sue” here, and “Dr. Sue” there; and

as I came to see more of her, I used to wish she could get away for a

long holiday and forget that she had relatives or patients depending

upon her. I have never known a life more beautifully and unselfishly

lived than that of this noble woman--so resourceful, so ready, so full

of reserve strength, even when worn and tired almost to the point of

exhaustion.

The business proposition which the Doctor made was that I share her

office, taking different office hours; pay the rent for a year, and

receive, in turn, the benefit of her office furnishings and medical

equipment. She would call me in consultation whenever she had an

opportunity, and turn over her practice to me whenever she went away,

as she would do in a few weeks, if I would come soon.

How my head whirled that night as I pondered the proposition! The

cost seemed stupendous--twenty-eight dollars a month for office

rent alone!--but on reaching home and talking it over with Father,

we decided to accept her terms. So in mid-July Father and I started

for U----, I with my trunk and books, my medicines, and few surgical

instruments, and Father with the money to pay a month’s expenses,

and a big fund of hope and faith in his daughter’s ability to make a

success of this momentous undertaking. When I look back and see how

inexperienced I was, how little I knew of the world and of life, I

wonder at my audacity; I wonder still more at the faith my friends had

in me, and at the confidence and respect which Dr. Wyeth showed in my

ability and opinions; but to such faith and confidence I owe largely

what success I have attained.

How busy Father and I were that first day, making my few purchases--a

small desk being the main one; making arrangements for my business

cards in the papers; ordering stationery; renting a lodging-room; and

looking up a boarding-place! I recall the gown I wore--a dark green

serge which Sister had made for me--very plain, as I had insisted, and

suitable for a staid physician.

In a building adjoining the office building, I found a furnished room

which I sub-rented from a woman living there, though just as I went

there she went away for a time. I have never had such a desolate

feeling as I had those few nights when, after closing the office, I

climbed the stairs to that lonely little room, the halls echoing to my

steps. And I kept thinking, “I am paying eight dollars a month extra

for this loneliness!” So it was not many days before I asked Dr. Wyeth

if she minded if I slept in the office, using her operating-chair as

my bed; arranging a place behind the draperies for my clothes; and

making a few other little additions which would suffice for my needs,

yet not detract from the professional appearance of the office. She

had no objection, but thought I ought to have a more comfortable bed.

The change was made, and few who visited the office ever knew that I

lodged there. For four years I slept on a narrow operating-chair, never

thinking it a hardship.

Sending a month’s rent to the woman of whom I had engaged the room, I

wrote her why I had decided to give it up. Replying with a menacing

letter, she tried to intimidate me into keeping the room. Scared,

though knowing I had made no compact with her for a stated time, I

anxiously awaited her return to town, when I called upon her. Pale with

rage, her eyes blazing, she denounced me as a liar and a hypocrite, and

said she would blast my reputation in U----. I did not know what to

make of such conduct. It was the first time I had ever had threatening

or abusive language used to me. I had been perfectly honourable with

her, but she was wildly unreasonable. I could hardly speak for the

dryness of my mouth as she continued her vituperations, and when I

escaped from her presence, it was as though from the den of a wild

beast. For some time after I was uneasy, but she never took the steps

she threatened. I learned later that her mother was insane, and that

she herself finally lost her mind.

Under the head of “Business” in one of the city papers, the day after I

went to U----, were two items only, the first telling of a new doctor

(my humble self) locating there, and the other of a new undertaker

having set up in business. Accidental as was the juxtaposition, it was

nevertheless a bit startling.

One of the men in the office of the firm for which Father was then

travelling had recommended to him a boarding-place for me near my

office, and I had engaged board there at once. Although disappointed on

seeing the fellow-boarders, knowing I could not afford a high-priced

place, I had decided to grin and bear it; but when Dr. Wyeth learned

where I was boarding, she said it would not do at all; she named two

places, either one of which would be desirable. On asking what they

charged, I found that one was two dollars more a week than I was

paying, the other one dollar more. So, telling her how necessary it

was to count the cost till I could get a footing, I said I had better

make no change. But she earnestly and emphatically opposed my staying

there; said it was poor policy, would immediately tell against me--a

bit of worldly wisdom that I strongly rebelled against--a dollar a

week more just to please Mrs. Grundy and board in a more aristocratic

neighbourhood! I was full of impotent rage at such a state of affairs,

and Father had much the same feeling, but having great respect for

Dr. Wyeth’s judgment, I reluctantly made the change. Immediately I saw

that she was right. The people with whom I then came in contact were

cultured; the whole atmosphere was desirable; and, in a short time,

through acquaintances there, I was engaged in work which did much to

introduce me well in the city.

“In the leisure of your first few months’ practice” was a phrase which

one of our professors had often used in lecturing to us, and through

this facetious reiteration, I was prepared for a long wait before that

first patient should arrive. But my second day in the city, the woman

physician who had an office adjoining ours asked me to see a case

with her. It was a servant in a fine house next to the home of Roscoe

Conklin. As it was a case of varicose ulcers such as I had seen dozens

of in the Dispensary clinics, I was able to make a positive diagnosis,

and confidently to advise the Doctor as to treatment, for which she was

grateful and gave me a dollar and a half--my first fee. This physician

was rather pompous, and not well grounded in medicine. She had a fair

exterior, an open countenance, and a big, motherly figure, but she did

not inspire confidence in me, yet she was kind-hearted and disposed

to be friendly. When, some months later, Sister came to visit me,

and the Doctor learned that we were sleeping together on that narrow

office-chair, she insisted on our using the unused folding-bed in her

office.

As a neighbour she was something of a nuisance, for whenever she knew I

was alone in my office she would come in and stay the entire evening.

I tired of her talk, and soon resorted to subterfuge to rid myself of

her: I would open my waiting-room door (which rang a bell whenever

the door opened); would pretend to usher someone in, and then try

to simulate the conversation of two persons, also moving about the

office, rattling instruments, letting water run, and so on. Knowing she

could hear some sounds from her office, I hoped she would think I was

engaged, and so stay away. Sometimes I would read aloud, so she would

think I had someone in there. Perhaps she heard more distinctly than I

thought, and saw through my deception. My most serious grudge against

her was for trying to destroy my ideal of one of our much-loved New

England poets. She had lived in the same city with him and claimed to

have been a frequenter in his home, and she met my glowing enthusiasm

for him with the rehearsal of gossip about an intrigue between him and

some woman friend. I did not believe her story, but it shocked and

angered me, and I detested her for mentioning it. I must have been

pretty severe, for she grew apologetic and conciliatory, and never

afterward talked to me about such things. Her story may or may not

have been true, but I smile sadly now at that girl who looked out upon

the world with such unbounded faith in humanity; who held such rigid

notions of right and wrong; and suffered such painful shocks on finding

both good and bad mixed in the same individual.

I had been practising nine days when I received my first office call.

The time had seemed very long since that day after my arrival, when

Dr. M---- had called me in consultation. I had begun to feel that

the waiting time was going to be no joke. But on that momentous day,

a working-girl strayed into my office. Listening to her symptoms, I

prescribed as carefully as I could, calmly took the seventy-five cents

office-fee, and ushered her out in my most professional manner. When

the door had closed upon her, I literally danced for joy; the capers I

cut would have made an onlooker laugh--or cry, for it had its pathetic

side. There was so much at stake; it meant so much to me, to my family,

and friends--and here was the beginning! a patient had actually come

to me! I had to be careful lest the physicians whose offices were

each side of mine should hear my demonstrations. I ran to the mirror

and stood on tip-toe (it was hung high for Dr. Wyeth), and looked for

sympathy into my own sparkling eyes, and saw my flushed face, and felt

half ashamed, and wholly elated, as I nodded and smiled to myself. Then

I skipped about the room again, until I remembered my new account-book

with its lone entry. Proudly making my second entry, I then recorded

in my case-book the patient’s symptoms and my prescription. I do not

recall that she ever came again, but hope the _bryonia_ which I gave

her for rheumatism helped her as much as her coming helped me.

This was my red-letter day, for scarcely had I become presentable from

the elation of that first call when another patient came. I felt like

an old hand at the business as I gave her the medicine and carelessly

took the office-fee. Although I had had patients for two years in

dispensary and hospital, these were the first who had paid me for my

services. A check for several months of my present salary, put into my

hands this minute, could not produce the elation I felt at receiving

those paltry office-fees.

As though that were not enough for one day! My cup literally ran over

when, in the evening, the telephone rang and there was a hurry call

from the hotel across the way. Seizing my medicine-case, which I had

heretofore been unnecessarily carrying in my walks about the city (in

obedience to Dr. Wyeth, though I felt like a hypocrite in so doing), I

flew down the stairs and across the street where I found the patient--a

nervous, impressionable girl, whom I had no difficulty in quieting and

relieving, at the same time alleviating her mother’s anxiety as well.

As I went through the hotel corridors I walked on air; my heart was

beating tumultuously. I wanted to shout for joy. A band was playing in

the street, making it harder still to maintain decorum until I could

reach my friendly office--that office where I had spent so many lonely

hours waiting for the door-bell to ring! that office which had this day

witnessed my triple triumph!

A few evenings later the bell rang. In the waiting room stood a tall,

lanky old chap.

“Hello, thar! Whar’s Doctor Sue?”

I told him Dr. Wyeth was out of town for a week or two and that I was

taking her practice. He looked at me comically; his face underwent some

kind of contortion which I suppose was a smile, as he said:

“Ye be? Wall, I vum! I don’t know just how that’ll strike Betsy.

Ye--ye’re used to old wimmen? Ye’re jest a-studyin’ with Doctor Sue,

I calk’late--No? Ye’re a full-fledged doctor, be ye? Wall, wall,

no harm intended--I’m jest a-wonderin’ about Betsy--she’s kind o’

cantankerous.” He scratched his head and eyed me.

“Wall, ye may as well come along and see what ye can make out with her.”

Inquiring his name and where he lived, I said I would call as soon as

my office hours were over.

“I’m Uncle Bill Gilmore--live in West U----. Ye git off the car at

V---- Street, and ask the fust one ye meet whar Uncle Bill lives, and

he’ll tell ye. Doctor Sue’s doctored us ever sen’ she hung out her

shingle. Betsy sets great store by her--don’t know how she’ll cotton to

you--ye mustn’t mind if she’s a leetle peppery.”

Off he went, and I, to maintain the dignity of my office hours,

waited, though I could just as well have gone with him. “Betsy”

“cottoned” to me all right, and thereafter they called me whenever Dr.

Wyeth was out of town.

During October and November, the Doctor being away, I was busy and

happy--busy mostly with work which would have been hers had she been

there, but with occasional patients who came to me. How the sight

of my old account-book brings back those days--my struggles, hopes,

exultations, and dismays, and Father’s visits! He came to the city

every few weeks, and always after the greeting and home news were

over would ask with assumed indifference to see the book. And I would

watch him look it over--the tears often coming to his eyes as he saw

evidences of a streak of good luck. And what a lively interest he took

in my rehearsal of experiences and descriptions of people and incidents!

Spendthrift that I am, I practised the strictest economy those days;

but then, as now, I would walk miles to save a carfare; then, on

occasion, suddenly launch out in some expenditure that proved how prone

I was to strain at gnats and swallow camels.

That first year I saw a great deal of Dr. Holton, a timid,

conscientious, romantic person several years my senior. She was much

addicted to novel-reading and prone to neglect things which she knew

would have contributed to her success. Her comments on her own failures

were most amusing; she had the real Irish wit, and enjoyed a joke on

herself. As she urged me to, I often visited her during her office

hours, usually finding her with nothing to do; we talked over books,

cases, people, and experiences, and got on famously together. I throve

on her expressed admiration of certain qualities which I had and she

lacked. She would comment on the friendliness of the County Society

members toward me, and how easily I talked with them, while she, who

had long known them, felt so abashed in their presence. She said they

treated all women physicians better since I had come among them. I told

her they would treat her in a more friendly way if she were not so

shrinking and apologetic; that they took her at her own valuation. But

how I used to wish they could hear her witty and caustic remarks about

them! They little dreamed how keen she was because in their presence

she was so Uriah-Heepish.

The men respected Dr. Wyeth, but her reserve and apparent coldness

stood in the way of a really cordial feeling. She had started in

medicine when much more antagonism had existed between men and women

physicians than obtained when I began the study, and had never quite

overcome the feeling that the men considered the women as interlopers.

She used to say it did her good to see the frank, fearless way in

which I spoke to Dr. Torrey, the surgeon of whom everyone else, even

the other men, stood in awe; she declared I could smile and talk him

into anything I wanted to. Occasionally he asked me to anesthetize his

patients, and, knowing I had been in hospital service, would sometimes

inquire what I thought of this or that procedure, and I would tell him,

without hesitation, which Dr. Wyeth and Dr. Holton would never have

dared to do, though having as decided opinions perhaps as I had.

Dr. Torrey was a sandy-haired man with a mouthful of fine teeth and a

ready smile; jovial yet irascible; a bachelor; always well-groomed;

and with the ego ever on duty. He had a habit of preparing papers for

the medical society, whirling in and asking to be allowed to read

them right away, as he had an important engagement. Everything would

be set aside for him, and, on finishing, he would whirl out again,

indifferent to all other papers. I had watched this happen on several

occasions; then once, when he asked me to write a paper, I spoke out in

meeting and said that I would, if he would have the uncommon courtesy

to stay and listen to it. A little chagrined, but amused, he really

did better after that. Dr. Wyeth said that if she had attempted to say

that to him, she would have incurred his lasting enmity; and Dr. Holton

declared that the very thought of her undertaking it paralyzed her; yet

my temerity made him more friendly than before. He was something of

a nettle in disposition, and because I laid hold with a firm grasp I

didn’t get hurt.

One of the leading physicians, Dr. Lord, turned practically all

his gynecological cases over to me. This physician had great charm

of manner, an engaging smile, and the most infectious laugh I have

ever heard--a valuable asset in the sick room. But what an alarmist!

His patients were always being saved as by fire. He could make most

persons believe that black was white, and when confronted by his

irresistible manner, I was almost as ready as others to espouse his

various medical fads, though I soon found that his fad of to-day was

ousted by that of the day after to-morrow. What a study the different

ones among my _confrères_ were! Dr. Hood, another of them, boarded

where I boarded the first year--a big, lymphatic man with a smooth,

fat face, eyes that could smile merrily, but a mouth that drooped at

the corners as though with a perpetual grievance. He looked profound,

but was not. Always chivalrous in his treatment of women, his courtesy

had a Southern flavour. His friends and associates were chiefly

women, and, I am bound to say, he excelled them in gossip. He had a

never-failing curiosity, seemed interested in everybody, remembered

details, was a capital _raconteur_. Delightful as a table-companion,

but as full of sarcasm and prejudices as a dressmaker’s pincushion is

of pin-pricks; back-biting was, in his case, one of the little foxes

that spoiled the vines. Never busy, never in a hurry, he apparently

never cared whether he had any professional work to do. He knew how

to cook better than most women can; would on occasion go into the

homes of his patients and prepare special diets; more than that, he

could knit, crochet, and embroider, and they used to say that he made

most of the trimming for his step-daughter’s underwear when she was

preparing her wedding trousseau! Dr. Chapin, another brother physician,

was a mild, easy-going man, somewhat lacking in decision, unassuming,

conscientious, dependable; never one to make a big stir, but one of a

class now fast disappearing--a typical family physician. Besides these

in our own school of medicine, there were a few of the old school

physicians with whom I became friendly.

Early in October of my first year of practice, through the secretary

of the Y. M. C. A., who boarded where I boarded, I was engaged to make

the physical examination of about two hundred women who were to join

the ladies’ club of the gymnasium. Professor Barton, the Physical

Director, called on me and explained the work: each applicant was to be

examined as to heart and lungs, general nutrition, and abnormalities;

and certain measurements were to be taken so that the Director could

ascertain what parts needed special development.

The Director himself was a fine specimen of physical manhood, past

forty, slightly below medium height, a strong, masculine frame,

vigorous, energetic; dark brown, penetrating eyes, black hair, a firm

chin--a forceful personality. Almost boyish in his love for his work,

his enthusiasm was contagious. Firmly believing in the efficacy of

body-building to form mind and character, his work was his religion;

and so impressed was I with its importance, I consented to undertake

it without the question of compensation for my services being even

mentioned. The ladies came to my office, I gave the greater part of my

time for a month to the work, and the only remuneration I received was

my ticket to the gymnasium class for a year! The Secretary had probably

left the question of my remuneration to the Physical Director, and

he probably thought the Secretary had arranged it; while I supposed

that, in time, one or the other would attend to it. So when the

ladies, on being examined, asked what the charges were, I foolishly

said, “Nothing”; therefore, I came out with no financial gain whatever

when, but for my timidity in speaking up when engaged for the work, I

should have realized, at the very least, two hundred dollars; while,

the probabilities are, it would have amounted to double that sum, had

I let each lady pay me, as the most of them evidently expected to do,

when I made the examination. The whole thing is rather characteristic

of my way of dealing with financial matters when my own interests are

at stake--a trait which I share in common with my father. But the work

was interesting, and by its means I gained a speedy introduction to the

“Two Hundred” of U----, while the gymnasium practice was beneficial to

me.

Early in my practice, when I had but few acquaintances in U----, I

became intimate with a certain family, through having the wife and

children as patients. My old school-mate had moved away shortly

after I went there, and as I had no place to go during Dr. Wyeth’s

office hours, I got in the way of spending a good deal of time in the

Richards’s home. Mrs. Richards, a woman of tall, handsome figure, was

a mild, placid woman, an excellent housekeeper, kind and motherly. She

made me welcome in her home; her boys, of whom I was fond, were fine

little fellows. The freedom with which I came and went in their home

was delightful. The father of the family was a forceful man of keen

intellect, impulsive, ardent, magnetic, and of ungovernable temper

when aroused. He was alive to all that pertained to the development

and guidance of his boys, and got in the way of coming to my office

of an evening to borrow books and chat awhile about them; he said it

did him good to discuss these matters with me, and he was glad to have

my influence on his boys. He was frank in his liking for me, and his

occasional calls were welcome in my lonely evenings. Sometimes he would

say: “I fear I come here too much--I don’t want to do that; Jane likes

to have me come--but if you mind, you must tell me.”

It was perhaps after a half dozen calls that he began telling me about

his early life, of his proud and passionate mother, and of her second

marriage to a man so vastly inferior in race and breeding that his

childhood and youth were made utterly miserable. As he recounted some

of the experiences of his boyhood, and the shame and rage he had often

been made to feel because of taunts concerning his step-father, I

felt a great pity for him, and was able to understand, in a measure,

his curious outbursts of temper of which he told me. Later he began

speaking more freely about his wife, of her goodness, but also of her

limitations; her incapacity for companionship, her unresponsiveness.

Because of all this, he said, he especially appreciated my kindness to

him, and thanked God he had found such a friend; he thought we could

be of help to each other, and was sure I understood him as no one else

ever had. That night when he left he held my hand longer than his wont,

and I felt an uneasiness, combined with an unwonted pleasure.

At his next call he found me upset over the elopement of the husband

of a favourite cousin. Those horrid headlines in the paper referred

to someone I actually knew! It was a relief to discuss it with a

friend. This talk led to a discussion of kindred topics. Afterward, as

I tried to recall our conversation, it seemed to me it had been on a

particularly lofty plane. I could seem to remember nothing which led

up to what happened. I remember that the large willow rockers in which

we sat got gradually nearer, and that the first I knew he was holding

my hands and looking in my eyes, and I was permitting it with less and

less resistance, a dangerous fascination, a kind of paralysis stealing

over me that held me spellbound. He was talking, talking breathlessly,

ardently, on his knees by my chair. I think he wept over my hand and

put his head in my lap; and there I sat like one dazed--conscious of

all he said, but only half able to reason, and, for a time, seemingly,

wholly incapable of stemming the tide of his passionate outburst.

I seemed to live ages in what must have been only a few minutes.

Presently I roused myself and then, like one in pain on awakening,

felt wounded to the very soul--a stain was forever on my womanhood--a

married man had confessed his love for me! Suddenly I saw what in

my blindness and ignorance I had only vaguely divined in the weeks

previous--all, all had been leading up to this.

A deadly faintness came over me. I fell back in my chair, conscious

still, cruelly conscious, but passive, limp, and mute. He must have

taken this for acquiescence, for he kissed me--on the cheek, near the

neck. _It burned me_, and aroused me. I sat up, passive no longer.

What I said I do not know, but he felt my anger and shrank from it. I

almost tore the spot from my face in the vehemence with which I tried

to eradicate that burning kiss. That angered him to the point of fury,

and my words enraged him more. While I had been in that passive state,

and he was covering my hands with kisses, he had said he would wait

years for me, if need be, if I would only tell him that I would love

him when he was free. On finding my tongue, I bitterly denounced him

for that; told him if he were free I would not marry him; that I could

never love him; and by then I must have experienced a marked revulsion

of feeling, for I loathed him.

Growing fairly black with rage, he became threatening; accused me of

leading him on, or at least of permitting his love, only to thrust

it back upon him. He took me by the shoulders roughly, looking into

my face with rage and hatred. I looked steadily back. I had a vague

realization of his great strength, and of his fiendish temper when

aroused, but was at that instant beyond physical fear; my desperation

at what I then felt was an ineradicable stain upon my soul was so

extreme that mere danger to life was as nothing. I must have met him

unflinchingly; I think I even said, “Kill me if you like!” Then a

terrible remorse came upon me. Suddenly I seemed to feel wholly to

blame, and with that began to soften towards him; he softened then, and

wept. One thing he said then pierced me to the heart:

“Why did you do it, Doctor? Why did you let me love you--life was

hard enough before--why did you do it?” And as he talked that way my

agony grew apace. I believed myself guilty--responsible for it all; I

believed (what I knew later was not true) that I must have seen it all

from the beginning--my consent to his calls, our handclasps at parting,

were blackest evidence of the steps I had permitted to lead up to this.

My remorse and misery changed his attitude entirely; he then began

accusing himself. Presently we fell to discussing it more calmly. But

at the recollection of my scornful words, the fire leaped in his eyes,

and a malicious purpose again plainly showed itself:

“You could never love me if I were ‘the last man on

earth’--you--_girl_! You don’t know what you are saying. Do you want to

rouse the very devil in me? Don’t you know that if I were free, free

to make you love me, you would be mine--_mine_! I’d make you take back

those words--I’ve a mind to make you take them back--_I’ve a mind to

make you love me now_!”

He was sitting or kneeling beside me, his face close to mine. I looked

in his eyes, and the very devil of daring and adventure must have been

in me at that instant, for I was fully conscious of a challenge passing

into my look. I think I said no word, but fairly defied him to make me

love him--if he could. He fixed my glance imperiously, and with his

face close to mine he hissed:

“Kiss me--on the lips--kiss me! You don’t dare to--_you’re afraid_!”

His lips came closer, his eyes flamed. I had a wild desire to do

as he commanded--not because I wanted to kiss him, for I hated him

again--such rapid revulsions of feeling swept over me--but just to

prove to him that his words were false--that I dared to kiss him and

still would not love him as he boasted. I had a curiosity also, a real

desire to know if there could possibly be such potency in a kiss.

But the instant of wavering could not have been long. At that crucial

moment my guardian angel (surely I had a guardian angel than) turned

my eyes from his compelling gaze to the top of the book-case by the

wall where stood the photographs of my father and mother. Instantly the

spell was broken. The power he had regained over me, after my first

repulsion had subsided, was dispelled by the sight of my parents’

faces looking down at me. But oh, the agony then! The remorse I had

felt earlier was as nothing compared to this. I cannot recall clearly

what followed. I know my defiance of him gave place to self-loathing

and self-castigation. It must have been shortly after that a profound

prostration supervened--the conflicting emotions were having their

effect upon my physical self. My pallor must have been extreme for

he became alarmed; he called to me; he chafed my hands, and pleaded

with me to rally, to speak, to live. I heard it all and knew all--was

never more aware in my life--but was powerless to stir, almost, it

seemed, to breathe. Finally, the faintness wearing away, I was again in

possession of all my faculties, but, oh, so cold, so cold! and with the

consciousness of an ineradicable stain on my soul.

It was then after midnight. All at once I became aware of the

compromising situation should he be seen leaving my office at that time

of night. I was disturbed, too, as to what Mrs. Richards would think

of his staying so late, yet was afraid to have him go. I was afraid to

be alone, afraid of my own thoughts. I clung to him, my fear of him

all gone--the danger now all gone--for my weakness appealed to his

strength, and his one thought then seemed to be to restore and help me.

He urged me to come home with him; he would carry me, if necessary; we

would together tell Jane; she would understand; or, should he rush home

and get her, and have her come and stay the night with me? he did not

dare to leave me there alone. But all this time I was getting where I

could think and plan for the future. When, previously, in helplessness,

I had clung to him, it was as though I must make him take it all back,

wipe it out; yet I was acutely conscious of the irrevocableness of it

all, I had only clung in desperation--like two drowning persons must

cling--no longer blaming him, but in utter wretchedness that together

we had brought this on ourselves.

Now I was clearer. I began to talk. I told him he must never come there

again alone. Then, as I thought of Mrs. Richards and the boys, and how

they loved and trusted me, I broke down completely. I felt I could

never again look into their faces; never enter their home, nor again

have the happy times we had enjoyed. This he opposed vigorously. He

asked nothing for himself, he said, but for her and the boys he pleaded

that I would not be so cruel: they needed me; I had brightened their

lives; he was more patient and kind when I was there, even when he knew

I was coming; I helped him to control his temper, they all knew it--if

I deserted them now, it would add to their misery. I suppose I then

promised to go to their home as usual. I, having completely rallied by

that time, he left me, himself looking worn and penitent, and showing

unfeigned concern at my wretchedness.

As I opened the door to let him out, every sound in the quiet building,

every fall of his foot down the stairs, struck me with dread; and when

I found myself alone in the room, my terror increased. I did not dare

to move; every sound I made increased this feeling; I was afraid to

undress; afraid to open out the operating-chair and make my bed; so,

wrapping a blanket around me, I reclined on the half-opened chair and

slept from sheer exhaustion.

When I awoke, the terrible consciousness was there that _it was all

true_; that it was not an ugly dream. Then I drank my first bitter

draught of the cup of life. I had thought I had known sorrow before;

thought I had suffered; but then, then, I knew that never until

then had I realized what suffering is. “It _isn’t_ true”--“It _is_

true,”--fast upon the one thought, said as though the very force

with which I uttered it would undo the truth, would follow the other

inexorable sentence, “It _is_ true.”

The events of the next few days, even my first meeting with Mrs.

Richards, are gone from my recollection. I remember one thing, though:

The next day, at my boarding-place, at dinner, a little Chatterbox of

a woman spoke of how pale and wretched I looked, then, babbling on,

told me that, having dropped into Mrs. Richards’s that morning, she

had found her suffering from a severe sick headache. It seemed as if I

must cry out in remorse and despair. In my hypersensitive condition I

felt directly responsible for her suffering, though she had suffered

similarly for years. I seemed made up of two entities, the one being

stabbed by this chatter, and by my own self-reproaches, and the other

calmly and indifferently replying to my table-mate, discussing the

most commonplace affairs. I marvelled at my own unmoved exterior,

marvelled at everything going on the same in the street, at the office,

everywhere--the same as the day before--when all was so changed in me!

The first time I saw Mr. Richards after that was in his home, the

family having sent for me to come to the house for supper. Already

there, and dreading to meet him, I heard him run up the steps briskly,

_whistling as he came_! He called out cheerily, “Are you in there,

Doctor?” It was a shock to me. I had so dreaded to meet him; had

thought of him as suffering from remorse as I had suffered (had he not

said with contrition that he would ask God to forgive him?); and here

he was whistling, and a love song! Again I recoiled from him, and with

it came a sickening sense of being alone in my misery, and of having

wasted more pity on him than he deserved. I was pretty severe when we

spoke of it later, but think he succeeded in mollifying me somewhat,

though I began then to think that his religious talk was largely cant,

and so ceased to have much patience with his asking God to forgive him.

My friendliness with the family continued, but I never received him in

the office after that, unless Mrs. Richards, or the boys, came with

him. Later I learned a great deal of their home life which I had only

divined before--learned that he was a very different man when I was

there from his ordinary self; that the boys’ fondness for me, though

genuine, was only a part of the reason why they were always so eager

for me to come there, the other part being that Dad was always so jolly

and good then, and things went so smoothly.

One evening while he and his wife and I were sitting on the veranda,

the boys came home, greeted us, and passed on into the house, after

which their father followed them, and we heard them in earnest

conversation. Soon they were talking angrily. Mrs. Richards hurried

in, and shortly after, I heard a cry of distress, and then her voice

calling, “Doctor, come--_come_!”

Rushing in, there in the dining room I saw what nearly paralyzed

me--the father, looking more like a fiend than a human being, had his

younger son by the throat, while the elder boy, white with terror,

stood on one side of the table, as far from his father as he could get.

The mother was closing windows and doors, so that the neighbours could

not hear, and was all the time beseeching the boy in jeopardy to say he

did it: “Say it, Tommy, or he’ll kill you!”

With no clue as to what it all meant, I only knew that here was an

enraged man, beside himself, and that his son, though in danger of

being choked to death, was defying him, standing out about something

he had been accused of. I took no time for thought, but, feeling

exultantly, “Here, I have some power over him--now I can expiate my

wrong,” rushed between the struggling father and son, tearing at the

man’s fingers as they clasped the boy’s neck. He tried to push me away,

looking as though he only half realized who I was; but, pulling at him,

I interfered with all my strength, calling to him. Presently he warned

me: “Doctor, get away if you don’t want me to hurt you, too--I warn

you--I will not be thwarted--he _shall_ confess.”

But I felt I must save the boy; must exert to the full my influence

over this enraged man. I don’t know what followed, or just what I did,

except that we three were being dragged around the table, and that I

kept my hands on those powerful hands that were grasping the boy’s

throat; and soon I stood looking into the eyes of that crazed creature

for what seemed an eternity--it was probably only a few seconds--all

the force of my being bent on making him relax his hold. Gradually I

felt his fingers loosen, his eyes ceased to glare with that lurid rage,

and at last his hands dropped limp; the boy was freed, and the man and

I confronted each other in breathless silence.

“Thank God! Thank God!” hysterically cried the mother, while the older

boy tried to hush her cry.

But the calm was of short duration. A second rage succeeded the first.

At the thought that I had seen this exhibition of his wrath, and that

further concealment was futile, he sprang at the boy again. Tommy ran

round the table. I sprang again at the father, and a second contest

took place. I can only remember clinging to his hands, and holding his

gaze, and hearing the frightened woman scream to me to be careful, or

he would attack me as he had attacked Tom.

How the storm subsided I cannot recall, except that he gradually got

control of himself, though the looks he cast at the boys showed that

his rage was only sleeping. His remarks to me were to the effect that

the game was up; I would loathe him now; I may as well know him now as

they knew him, and, though I had prevented him from carrying out his

threats, he would know the truth yet--he would wait till to-morrow--but

punish those boys he would, and I need not think I could prevent it.

Then he left the house.

We breathed freer after he was gone, but looked at one another in

dismay, feeling it was only a lull in the storm. They depended on me

for help, but how was I to help them? It seems that evening at the

“Gym,” he had seen the boys hobnobbing with some others whose habits he

had warned them against; he thought they acted guilty when he came upon

them, and had been awaiting their return home to confront them with his

suspicions. Their denial had enraged him, hence the terrible scene.

All the woman’s disguises were now laid aside. Previously she had tried

heroically to conceal the unhappiness in their home life. Many a time I

had detected her anxiety when the boys had been saying or doing things

which she feared might anger their father, but, on meeting my glance,

she would summon a smile and change the subject. Now it was all out.

We talked it all over. She was afraid he would desert them now, as he

had threatened doing of late; but what she feared most was his coming

home late in the night, after I had gone, and dragging the boys out of

bed and repeating the scene; or, if just sullen, he would wait till

morning, and then give the boys a thrashing; his smouldering anger

would flare afresh--and, God pity them all! They implored me not to

leave them. It was a miserable evening that we spent listening for him.

I heard him come in late in the night, stalk about his room, and fling

off his shoes. How I pitied the woman lying there, afraid to speak,

feigning sleep, recoiling, as she must, from that man’s presence, yet

welcoming that rather than that he should go across the hall to where

the boys were sleeping!

In the morning she came to my room, heavy-eyed and anxious, dreading

what the day held for them. He did not come down to breakfast. They

seemed to think the storm had got to come--that it was only being

postponed while I could stay with them.

Reassuring them as best I could, I went upstairs to him. I had no

definite plan, but knew I must in some way extract a promise to let the

matter drop, at least not to punish the boys till entirely over his

anger, he had heard them calmly; and that, if he did punish them, I was

to be present.

There the great black creature lay, his face sullenly turned to the

wall. What should I do? My instinct told me what. And here I recall the

complexity of feelings I experienced: the shrinking from him at the

recollection of his brutal rage; the thought that I had calmed that

rage somewhat, and could still more if I could conquer my repugnance.

Then came the recognition that I could only do it by exerting my power

as a woman over him--the discovery of a power that shortly before

had made me sick with remorse. Then came another thought: If, though

unwittingly, I have acquired this power over him, and have suffered it

to develop to the point it has with no object in view, why not now,

with this worthy object, take advantage of the influence, and compel

him to do my bidding? It was similar reasoning to what I had used the

night before, if my rapid thoughts and impulsive acts could be said to

be the result of reasoning. This morning’s course was more deliberate,

though hardly as much so as this statement of it would seem to imply.

Stepping to the bed I put my hand on his shoulder and tried to have

him look round. He snarled savagely, turning farther away. I remember

keeping my hand on his shoulder and trying to get him to turn over and

talk to me. I sat on the bed and pleaded with him. After he did turn,

he looked at me searchingly for a while, and, when he spoke, expressed

surprise that I would ever speak to him again. I don’t recall what I

said, but suddenly he looked at me sharply and said: “See here! I have

a great big thought--is it true?--tell me! Do you care for me more than

you have let me know, but have fought it because it was right to---- Is

it so? _Is_ it?”

And I, seeing him melting under my influence, and knowing that I had

set to work deliberately to bring this melting about, anxious to gain

my ends, conscious of what a fiend he was when thwarted--I did not have

the courage to contradict him outright; and, if I did make some half

dissent, was at least keeping my hold on him, literally, by the touch

of my hand, while wondering how far it would do to let him think he

was right--enough at least to gain this point about the boys, so he

would take back his threats and let go the punishment. I was conscious

of making some compromise with my conscience on the ground of the

exigencies of the case; conscious that the look in his eyes, before we

were done talking, was that of a tamed, or, rather, subdued, animal,

instead of an angry, morose one; yet I really did nothing except

just to be my undisguised self--soft and pitying and tender to this

man whose evil temper I now understood. I let him see that I did not

despise him, even for this revelation; but that I wanted to help him

and them; still I did not entirely dispel that thought which had come

to him, and think I hoped he would continue to think that perhaps it

was true--for a time, at least.

Downstairs we all talked it over together, and he gave me his word

before them all that that should end it. And it did.

My intimacy with the family increased. I felt their dependence upon me,

and was easier now that he frankly showed his interest in me before his

wife; it seemed to take the sting from the recollection of that tragic

night in the office.

One evening, weeks later, at their home, they began jesting about my

marrying, speculating as to the kind of man I would be likely to love.

I did not like such talk. (Once, earlier, when he had been trying to

make light of what had happened, to reassure me and dispel my remorse

he had said, “You will marry some good man one of these days, and

forget all about this.” Aside from other considerations, entirely apart

from this, I had previously declared that I should never marry; but now

in my hypersensitiveness over it all, I actually thought I had lost

the right to marry--I knew I could not marry without confessing that a

married man had made love to me, and that I had listened to him, and I

fully believed that any honourable man would despise me for this. I was

in dead earnest. In vain he had tried to point out how little I had to

be remorseful about; deaf to his arguments, I thought them put forth

only because of his own callous depravity.) And so I was angry at him

now for bringing up this question in his home; but continuing, he said:

“Jane, the Doctor says she will never marry--do you know why?”

I was afraid he was coming out with the whole story. He turned on the

boys, who were showing an eager interest in the talk, saying, “Boys, go

in the other room”; then, turning to me, said, “You say you will never

marry; you think you are strong enough to stick to that; you pride

yourself on being independent, but--_if I were free_, I’d make you

marry me, _and I’d make you love me_! You couldn’t help yourself. Oh,

you needn’t mind Jane--she doesn’t mind--do you, Jane? She knows me,

and knows I love you--I’d show you what your resolutions would amount

to--_if I were free_!”

This, accompanied with poorly veiled excitement and a daredevil look,

and said to me _before her_, in their own home, made me speechless. For

her sake I had done my best to appear ignorant of his special interest

in me; but here he was boldly confessing it, and, in a way, challenging

me again to withstand him. It roused my scorn and contempt, and I fear

I showed it that night.

So, little by little, the disguises dropped away all around, though

our friendship continued. As I became busier in my work I went less

frequently to their house. Subsequently he confessed to me an intrigue

he had had some years before. This shocked me, and lowered him further

(as well as myself) in my esteem, for, in trying to win me he had

claimed that I was the one woman to him; and, while having admitted

that it was wrong to confess his love, he had declared that something

in me made it impossible to help it, and so on; and, in my ignorance

and vanity, I had believed him; had doubtless condoned his wrong for

this very reason. This later confession of a previous infatuation--even

a guilty one--made all this in which I had had a share seem not only

more wrong, but more sordid; and, too, it gave a deep wound to my

self-love. I was getting my eyes opened to life and human nature at

a rapid rate. Other revelations of his temper and character, as time

passed, made me sick at heart, but gradually out-growing the acuteness

of my remorse, I learned in time rather to exult in the fact that I had

not been more deeply compromised.

After a time the family moved away. Years later I saw them again. They

seemed to be getting on well. We then discussed calmly the earlier

times. I found much of my bitterness and denunciation toward him had

moderated. I had by that time seen more of life; had learned to be more

tolerant; understood him better. He told me that he had never ceased to

be thankful that my own steadfastness had prevented him from ruining my

life; that, whether I chose to believe him or not, bad as he had been,

he had never meant to wrong me; that he had always esteemed me above

any woman he had known; and that no one in the world, knowing of his

baseness, had shown him the tenderness and tolerance and helpfulness

that I had shown. He talked over my own life and subsequent experiences

with me, and gave me sound advice. He understood me better than I

had understood myself. I am bound to say that his retrospections and

prophecies were alike sympathetic and penetrating.

During that first year’s practice, a few weeks after this regrettable

experience which had cast such a shadow over me, I saw deep into the

tragedy of the life of a young girl who came to me for succour. She

was only nineteen; she refused to give me her name or address, but

haltingly told me her story, and expressed her fears. It was some weeks

before I could either dispel or confirm her fears, during which time

my hold on her was precarious; but she came again and again, both of

us hoping against hope as long as we could. On the day when I had to

acknowledge to myself and her that what she feared was true, I seemed

to grow years older. Though I had now been graduated in medicine a

year, my worldly wisdom was very limited, and here was a desperate

girl looking to me for help--a pretty, round-faced, red-cheeked child,

unsophisticated, undeveloped. She resolutely refused to tell me the

name of the young man concerned, saying if he were willing she would

not marry him. She did not mind what she suffered if only her parents

did not find out. Her mother would die if she learned the truth. When

she found I could not help her in the way she had hoped, she was in

dire distress. I tried to persuade her to send her mother to me and

together we would plan something, but she would not consent; if I could

help her to go away and keep the secret from everyone there, she would

go and have her child honourably; if not, she would go to someone who

would help her in the other way. I felt I must save her from that crime

at all costs, and my earnest convictions must have impressed her, too;

for she then begged me to think out some way by which it could be

arranged.

Knowing the resident woman physician in a Home in a distant city, where

they took girls who had gone astray for the first time, and found homes

for their babies, I took steps to get her admitted there. While our

plans were pending, the girl came to me almost daily; she had nowhere

else to go. During these interviews, I was struck by the fact that she

seemed all intent on concealing the consequences of her wrong-doing,

but showed little remorse for the wrong itself. I could not understand

this; but, as I came later to see more of such cases, I learned

that by the time the poor creatures are certain of their condition,

the acuteness of remorse has spent itself--they are confronted by a

desperate condition calling for action, and their need of escaping

detection then overrides contrition. Not appreciating this then, I was

puzzled and hurt at the girl’s apparent callousness. As an accomplice

in the scheme for getting her away, I was throwing myself so completely

into the situation that I shared her shame. I verily believe I felt

her sin and remorse more than she did _at that time_, though there’s

no telling what she had felt earlier. The knowledge which I had so

recently gained had made me aware of the dangerous fascination between

the sexes, or I might have been less sympathetic with her; as it was,

I came to be almost glad of an experience that enabled me to help the

poor girl more understandingly than I otherwise could have helped her.

At length we learned the cost and requirements at the Home. She could

manage the cost, but how were we to get her away, and keep her away all

the months necessary, so that her family and friends should be blinded

to the facts? Her already changing figure made it imperative that

she go at once. Persuading a friend in the country to take her a few

weeks to board, it was still necessary to devise some excuse for her

going that would appeal to her family. As her mother knew that I had

been treating her for an “anemic condition,” it would be, I thought, a

simple matter to persuade her that her daughter needed to get away for

a change of air, so I told her to bring her mother to the office.

The woman came, solicitous about her daughter. She rehearsed her

daughter’s symptoms; was afraid she was going into a decline, or had a

tumour growing, or some other serious condition. The mother was very

deaf; I thought her blind also, for she evidently suspected nothing.

Reassuring her as well as I could, I persuaded her to let Hetty go

to my friend’s for two weeks, well knowing that after once getting

her away, we must invent some other excuse for a longer stay. Right

there in the mother’s presence, owing to her deafness, we perfected

the plans. I shudder when I think of that hour; when necessary to talk

at length about details, to avoid suspicion, I would go to a distant

part of the room a little out of range of the mother’s vision, and,

appearing to be busy there, would, in a low voice, give my directions.

Our scheme was for her to stay with my friend for two months, if

possible, writing back home frequent encouraging letters as to her

marked improvement in health, thus gaining consent to remain away.

Later she was to state that my friend, Miss Hurd, a semi-invalid, had

grown attached to her and had invited her to go on to New England for

a little visit. If this worked, and she obtained permission to go so

far from home, we were to have Miss Hurd become so ill while away as to

require Hetty’s services as a nurse, thus accounting for her long stay

in Providence.

It proved even a harder undertaking than I had bargained for. It was my

first experience in downright, sustained deception; but there was much

at stake, and I was bound to carry the thing through.

Hetty had been at Miss Hurd’s only three weeks when they felt they

could keep her no longer--the neighbours were getting curious, and the

family was uneasy about the whole situation. So it was decided to have

Hetty go on to Providence early. As a matter of fact, Miss Hurd came

on to U---- to visit me, so they came that far together, Hetty going

on to New England. Meeting her at the train, I could offer only a few

hurried words of direction and encouragement, and the train bore her

away in the darkness. Homesick and frightened, she could not get off

that train and seek her home, but must journey on, alone, at night, to

that strange city, suffering, dread, and wretchedness ahead of her!

About two weeks later her mother appeared at my office, this time in

great distress. Miss Hurd opened the door for her--the very young woman

with whom her daughter was supposed to be in Providence--but of course

she had no suspicion as to who she was. The woman demanded that I write

and tell Miss Hurd that her daughter must come home at once: people

were thinking it queer that Hetty was staying away so long; someone had

even intimated that she was married and was going to have a baby--they

were saying all sorts of things. There that deluded mother sat and said

to me: “You and I know that it isn’t so; we know the poor girl has been

sick, and that she is taking care of this invalid friend of yours; but

they have made these insinuations and her father is furious; he says

she must come home at once and put a stop to such reports--he says that

under the circumstances her duty is to herself and not to Miss Hurd.”

I used what persuasion and arguments I could, and assured her I would

communicate immediately with Miss Hurd and Hetty, and tell them how

matters stood here, though I hated to distress the poor child with

such reports being circulated about her. She agreed it was a great

shame, and, too, just as she was so happy and feeling so like her

old self. As soon as she had gone, in the same room where she had

been sitting, Miss Hurd sat and, heading the letter from Providence,

wrote to the girl’s mother, begging her to let Hetty stay another

month at least, pleading her need, and her physician’s opinion that

a change of companions just then would be very prejudicial to her--a

letter which the family could show to doubting friends, thus allaying

suspicion. This letter, inclosed in one to Hetty, was sent back with

the Providence post-mark, and the family quieted down.

This was near a month before the baby came--an anxious month for me,

what must it have been for Hetty! The baby died in two weeks. I felt

relieved; it simplified things; but Hetty’s grief was real and deep:

“Oh, Doctor, my baby is dead!” she wrote. She was not a “Hetty Sorrel,”

after all, as I had sometimes thought her, but a sorrowing mother, her

shame and fear of detection--everything--forgotten in her anguish over

the death of her illegitimate baby!

The night she came home, meeting her train, I went with her to her

door. I longed to go in and help her face her family; but that could

not be. She had brought back to me all the letters I had written her,

with a lock of her baby’s hair--a tiny silken curl which the doctor had

cut from the dead baby’s head. The pathos of it! the little curl was

folded in a powder paper, and put in a tiny box marked “mourning-pins.”

“I don’t dare to take it home with me, but you will keep it for me,”

she said.

We had been preparing her family for her altered appearance: she was

supposed to be worn out from caring for the invalid, and, the last two

weeks, to have had a severe attack of dysentery. By her manner of dress

she was to arrange that her figure should appear much as when she went

away; but, oh, her face!--they must have been blind, indeed, if they

could not see that it was not, and never would be again, the round

girlish face they had known. It was the face of a saddened woman. Her

grief for her baby was pitiful, and she was denied even the comfort of

that little lock of hair!

Months later she told me her people never learned the truth, but I

sometimes felt that they must have surmised more than they let her

know; and yet, perhaps not. By a ruse I got from her subsequently

the name of her child’s father, making her think I knew it when only

suspecting it--a strange thing this--the woman’s loyalty in shielding

the man! My little “Hetty Sorrel” began to show the more heroic traits

of “Hester Prynne.” I kept in touch with her for several years.

When Dr. Wyeth learned of all this, she was frightened at the risks I

had taken, and begged me never to undertake a case like that again,

unless some other member of the family be taken into confidence. But

the poor girl had said that it would kill her mother; that her father

would kill her lover; and that, if they knew the truth, she might as

well kill herself; so I had yielded to her entreaties for secrecy. Had

she died in confinement, I knew my letters to her, and hers to me,

would vindicate me, proving that there had been no crime--merely the

attempt to help her to keep her secret.

Only a short time after this another girl came to me in the same

trouble. Here the circumstances were different: She had no relatives in

this country; she was English, twenty-three years old; her lover was

Irish, and a Roman Catholic. She frankly told me his name and where

he worked, and said he drank some, but she was willing to marry him

if he would have her, but she doubted if he would marry her. I told

her to send him to me. When he paid no attention to this request, I

wrote, asking him to call. This also he ignored; then I called at his

boarding-place and left a note saying I should be under the necessity

of calling upon him at his place of business, unless he came at once

to see me. This brought him to the office. He was a factory hand. He

had a dogged air. While sounding him, to see if he would marry the

girl, I had spoken of seeing the priest, which evidently impressed him,

for he said, “You can make me marry her, but I won’t live with her.”

Then I took another tack: Of course I could make him marry her, but I

wouldn’t do that if he was not man enough to marry her willingly--such

marriages could only bring misery; and anyhow, I understood he was a

drinking man, and Molly was too good a girl to be tied to a man with

such habits. He sneered when I spoke of her as being a good girl; that

roused my wrath. I told him he was a coward to get a girl in trouble

and refuse to stand by her, then sneer at her in the bargain; that the

least he could do was to help her financially, so she could go away

and have her child where her acquaintances would be none the wiser,

and she could take up her old life again, untrammelled by the stain

and disgrace. I made him see that she had got to face all the pain and

danger and disgrace, and that he certainly ought to make it easier for

her by paying her board in a Home, and the expenses of her confinement.

He rose to the occasion, and went out of the office with more

self-respect, and commanding more respect from me, than when he had

come in; and in a few days, when he sent me money for several months’

board, I arranged for Molly’s admittance to the Providence Home. It was

a much easier affair to manage than the other. But as Molly’s money

began to give out, Mike’s manliness oozed out, too. As he ignored her

appeals, I wrote for him to call on me again. The days went by and he

made no sign. Meantime, a letter from the doctor told me that Molly’s

son was born, was already adopted, and that Molly had a place as a wet

nurse for a premature baby which was being raised in an incubator.

Molly’s bills were still unsettled; if Mike was to help any more I

must compass it then; she would need all she could earn for future

necessities.

Calling at his boarding-place, I found he had just gone back to work.

Hurrying toward the factory, I saw him ahead of me, sauntering along,

all unconscious of who or what was overtaking him. Coming up behind

him, I spoke his name. Turning, surprised and sheepish, he faltered,

“I was going to come to the office to-night.” Looking in his eyes

I announced, “Mr. Dagon, your son was born day before yesterday.”

Conflicting emotions showed in his wretched face--astonishment, pride,

joy, were quickly followed by shame and humiliation, as he realized

he had no right to be proud of being a father. The words “your son”

had roused the man and the father in him, but the painful feelings had

quickly supervened. My anger melted as I saw his pitiable state; but,

knowing him for a shifty fellow, I realized I must get him to commit

himself in regard to the money. He promised to bring it that evening;

then asked in a shamefaced way more about Molly and the boy. I told him

of the baby being adopted by a childless couple almost before it was

born.

The practice in that institution was to encourage the prospective

mothers to keep their babies, face conditions, and live so correctly

afterward that people would overlook the wrong-doing; but the girls

were offered the alternative of giving up the child; the decision,

however, had to be made before the child was born. Molly had decided

to give up her baby. When it came, she wanted it back; but it was too

late--it had been pledged to these people, who had immediately taken

it away. They had taken Molly’s name, left her a name and address that

would always reach them, and had agreed to let her hear from the child

once a year, on his birthday; but she was not to see him, and he was

never to learn that she was his mother.

As I explained all this to Mike, he listened in silence till I said

she was to be a wet nurse for a feeble baby; then he fired up, looking

black and angry. “I should think she’d be ashamed,” he said, “to nurse

a strange baby, and let her own be brought up on a bottle.”

“Whose fault is it that she has to do this?” I retorted. “She wanted

to keep her child; she would have borne the disgrace; would have come

back openly with it in her arms, had you stood ready to support her and

it; but you would have none of it; you wouldn’t even send her enough

money to pay for her board and medical care. She couldn’t face the

world, weak and sick, in disgrace, in debt, and out of work, with a

helpless baby; she had to decide as she did that her child might have

a good home, and she be free to support herself. And now, after it is

too late, after you have neglected her, you dare to blame her for what

she has done! Don’t you suppose she has suffered, and will suffer, more

than you can ever know? Hasn’t she everything to bear, and alone; while

you, who have gone scot-free, have the face to blame her for what you

have forced her to do!”

He was man enough to be ashamed, and lamely said so, and then, of

course, I pitied him. He came in the evening with the money, asked for

more particulars, and showed the best there was in him.

In time Molly returned to her old work in U----. She had developed

remarkably. Association with persons of refinement had helped her; she

wanted to better herself; was full of plans for going to night-school,

and for seeking worthier associates. She was hungry for news of her

baby, and its adopted mother was soon better than her word, writing to

her, and continuing to write every few months--letters full of his baby

ways, which Molly would bring to me with all a mother’s pride in her

boy, but with a cruel hunger that most mothers never know.

In a year’s time Molly came to me saying that a young carpenter wanted

to marry her, a good steady fellow that she liked, but that she would

not marry him and not tell him about the baby; and if she told him, she

feared he would cease to care for her. We agreed that there was but the

one right thing to do, and though feeling sure he would turn against

her, she heroically promised to do it. A few days later she came to me

with a radiant face: she had told him her story; he had “been good”

to her; had even said they would take the baby to rear if she could

get it; but, alas! she was pledged not to seek to do this. They soon

married and had babies of their own.

The queer thing about the little “John Alden,” as Molly’s baby was

called, is this: he had the same effect that adopted waifs have often

had in childless homes--within a year or two the foster-parents had a

child of their own, which naturally called out the mother’s strongest

love; still she wrote Molly that the little John was as dear as ever.

But after a second child came, and then reverses, Molly and I detected

a change in the letters. I fancied the foster-parents would not be

sorry to relinquish the care of the little fellow; but whether or not

the question was ever really broached I cannot remember, if indeed I

ever knew.

These were only two of several similar cases which fell into my hands

during my years in U----. Dr. Wyeth told me I had had more of them

than she had had in all her years of practice. Nothing that has come

into my professional life has yielded me such unalloyed satisfaction as

the help I was able to give these girls. Sometimes I have had to go to

parents and break the news, in one case, actually had to plead with the

girl’s mother for mercy and kind treatment of the misguided girl. Much

of my work as a physician has been inefficient and faulty--this I know

better than any one else--but this work is the best I have ever done;

and it is work that I was perhaps better prepared to do in the right

spirit because of that regrettable personal experience during my first

few months of practice.

After a year’s time I was cosily established in an office of my own

across the hall from Dr. Wyeth. What a good time I had getting my

furniture! Not a cent was spent without careful planning. My rooms were

modestly but attractively furnished, and I was happy in the change. I

had a small waiting room, a large private office, and a little room

where I kept my gas-stove and household appliances--an improvised

kitchenette. I could choose my own office hours now, so had better

ones, and my practice steadily increased. Then I reduced expenses

further by getting my own meals and caring for my rooms. What cosy

suppers we had when Father came in town, or when friends came to see

me! But I lived frugally, and accounted for every quart of milk, or

pound of beef, or box of cocoa, every postage stamp, and carfare; I

think, on the whole, there was little that I bought which I could have

done without. If I purchased a book, or spent more than was absolutely

necessary in some such way, I skimped in table supplies to even up

matters. Eating alone, as I did most of the time, very little sufficed

me; but once in a while I would get downright hungry, then would buy a

beefsteak, and was sometimes so ravenous I could hardly wait to get it

cooked. It was worth the abstinence to have the appetite I occasionally

had.

Dr. Wyeth’s kindness and helpfulness did not abate when I moved to

my new office; she always left her keys with me, so I had the use of

her books, and telephone, and her operating-chair for a bed for my

occasional guests--a similar chair of my own now serving as bed for me.

One day, while sitting in my new office, a queer-looking old farmer

came in. He blinked and stared around as I stepped out, and asked,

“Where’s the Doctor?”

“I’m the doctor.”

“Oh--a woman doctor!”

He continued to stare; then, as he recovered himself, said musingly, “I

never saw one before.”

“Well, what do you think of It?” I felt like asking, but probably

inquired in my politest professional manner what I could do for him.

He told me about his wife. I made an appointment for an examination,

and shortly after she came. The little woman, between fifty and sixty,

was suffering from a long-standing cancer. I hated to tell her the

truth; she caught eagerly at the slightest hope. There was but little

to expect at that advanced stage from an operation, and I told her so,

but she wanted the benefit of that little; so Dr. Wyeth and I operated,

and for a time she was more comfortable; but later her symptoms became

distressing; yet how she clung to life, even to the last!

One day, toward the end, her husband came for me to go out to their

home and see her--one of the queerest drives I ever took. The man

appeared elated, though from his report of her symptoms her death

seemed imminent. I had told him that there was probably little that

I could do if I went to see her, and he had seemed divided between

pleasure at my going and miserliness at having to pay for the visit.

While I was getting instruments and dressings ready, he looked about

the office in undisguised interest and curiosity, commenting naïvely

on what must have been the cost of various things; asking if I had a

big practice; what I did when I had to go out at night; if I didn’t

sometimes wish I had a man to help me; and if I wasn’t lonesome in the

evening.

When we stepped into his buggy, he started up his fine horses with

a flourish, proud to show them off. I must have spoken approvingly

of them, for he said, “_You_ like to ride fast, don’t you? So do I.

_She_ don’t; she says it hurts her.” Passing some children along the

country road, when I waved a greeting to them, he observed, “_You_ like

children? So do I. _She_ don’t--never could bear to have them around.”

I found the poor woman near the end, and told him it could be a

question of only a few days at the most. His comments on the way

had prepared me for his callousness at this news, but not for what

followed. Instead of driving me right back, as I wished, he insisted

on showing me all about the house and barns, and even out to the

hill-meadow, where he had a fine view of the city. He acted like a boy.

As we stood on the hill-top, he expatiated on the extent and value of

his farm; on his stock and barns; on the improvements he meant to make;

all of which was tiresome to me; but he finally arrested my attention

by the remark.

“See what a fine place this would be for a doctor to live; she could

come out here after office hours, and could drive into the city in no

time with horses like mine.”

More of such talk followed--I hardly knew whether to be angry or

amused--the conceited, unfeeling old wretch was apparently making a

tentative proposal to me there in his home, his wife within a few days

of her death! (I learned some weeks afterward that he had for some time

previous been in the habit of stopping at a neighbour’s and talking

excitedly about the “little Doctor”; wondering what her practice

amounted to, and whether she would want to give it up, if she married,

or keep on with it.)

“What’s the damage?” he asked, as we were driving home; and when I

named the charge for the visit, he sighed as, slowly drawing out his

wallet, he said regretfully: “That’s just what I got for the last calf

I sold.”

I don’t recall much about him after that, except that he dropped into

the office a few times for prescriptions for himself, and once brought

me some fruit and some Christmas greens; but if he pushed his hints

further, I have forgotten about it.

It was during my years in U---- that Sister’s marriage took place; that

Grandma died; and that Kate’s first baby was born--events of great

moment to me. I recall the feeling of sadness and irrevocability that

night as the train bore Sister away on her honeymoon. It was harder,

though, to see her leave, a year later, after a summer spent at home,

for she was then about to become a mother, and was going so far away;

but, well and happy, she was full of plans for getting settled in her

new home, and her chief regret was Grandma’s approaching death with the

certainty that she could never see her baby.

When Grandma died we were all anxious to know just the nature of the

heart trouble from which she had suffered so long. Our family physician

had refused to do the autopsy; and, incredible as it seems to me now

(so important did it seem then), I said, “I will do it since Dr.

Hall will not.” I asked Dr. Campbell to be present; his right hand

was disabled, or he would have spared me the ordeal. There, in that

little bedroom, the Doctor and my father looking on, on my twenty-third

birthday, I made the examination which revealed to us the cause of

those agonizing attacks from which Grandma so long had suffered; but it

was little more than a careful study of the case ought to have shown

during life. In these later years I have thought with horror of the

girl that stood there that afternoon and cut through the breast that

had nourished her mother; through the dear breast that had pillowed

so often her own childish head; down, down, into the poor, out-worn

heart. It was a horrible thing to do. Now, try as I will, I can hardly

see how the thing could have presented itself to me so as to make

it seem imperative to take that unnatural step. Father, who was as

tenderly attached to Grandma as an own son could be, had to leave

the room before the work was done. A merciful something kept me from

feeling about it then as I do now. Yet I knew then, and know now, that,

hard as it was, it was easier to do the work myself--for it was done

reverently, and from a rigid sense of duty--than it would have been

to stand by and see even the most considerate of physicians lay the

investigating hands of science upon the body of my grandmother.

As Sister’s husband was just starting in the practice of medicine in a

little New England village, and as he had had no experience with such

cases outside of his college work, both he and Sister wished me to be

with them at the time of her confinement. I also wished to be there,

and was planning my work accordingly when, to my consternation, I

received a telegram saying: “Read Isaiah IX 6, and come immediately.

Both doing well.” Rushing across the hall into the rooms of my

neighbours, the Randolphs, I cried, “Give me a Bible, quick! I’m afraid

my sister’s got her baby!” And so it was: “Unto us a Child is born;

unto us a Son is given.”

What disappointment and anxiety I felt as I journeyed there! It

seemed unbelievable that she could go through all that, and I not

with her. I felt resentment toward the little being that had come so

inopportunely--there she was in her new home, not yet settled, among

strangers, all unprepared for what had been happening in the last

twenty-four hours!

When I saw her, pale and weak, but smiling through her tears as she

guarded the little bundle by her side, I felt an added resentment

toward that bundle. I did not even feel drawn to it when I saw the tiny

red face; but when he lifted up his voice and wept, the cry, so weak

and helpless, went to my heart; from that instant I loved him.

During labour, when they had told my sister that the child would be

there before morning, she had exclaimed, “It isn’t so--it can’t be

so--Genie can’t get here--I won’t have my baby till Genie gets here!”

They laughed at us both for our disappointment over the precipitate

outcome.

I stayed with them two weeks--a strenuous, anxious time--and, the very

day I left, was taken with what later proved to be gastric fever.

Stopping over in Concord a day and a night to see Laidlaw, and have

dinner with him and two other class-mates living near, I was so ill

that evening that I had to leave the dining room, and that night

Laidlaw and his landlady were up with me most of the night. Journeying

next day as far as Worcester, I was detained there for two weeks at Dr.

Carson’s, where she and Fenton (of the hospital days) took excellent

care of me. It was the first time since childhood that I had been

“down sick,” but, soon recuperating, I went back to my work in U----.

From that time onward my interests widened--two centres now--Home,

and Sister’s home; everything that happened in that New England home

was of great moment to me. The baby’s growth and development were

topics of never-failing interest. When they came home the next year,

how infinitely richer life was with that baby in our midst! How much

more wonderful than ordinary babies--his winsome smile, his soft pansy

eyes, and that first tooth! I suspect that for the next three years, at

least, I taxed to the limit the tolerance of my friends with numerous

little stories about my sister’s phenomenal child.

The most intimate, and certainly the most far-reaching, influence

which came to me during my life in U---- came through the Randolphs--a

physician and his wife who had their home, and the Doctor his office,

on the same floor of the building where I had mine. Perhaps a little

slow in making friends, they made up for that in steadfastness and

helpfulness as time passed. The Doctor was then probably forty years of

age--a tall, large-framed man, with a superb head, a fine brow, a firm

mouth and chin, a face always pale, but eloquent with the determination

to rise above suffering. Neurasthenic, crippled since youth from an

injury to one knee, he was subject to frequent breakdowns, was seldom

free from pain, and his work, confined to an office practice, was done

under great disadvantage. I think he has the kindest eyes I have ever

seen--eyes that look deep into the soul, seeing all its frailties and

struggles, its triumphs and defeats. To the needs of all who came his

comprehension and ready help were assured.

Of Mrs. Randolph’s friendliness one felt less certain; she had even

a repellent manner with strangers; she must weigh them in the balance

before acceptance, no taking on trust with her. A trim little body,

keen of perception and sharp of tongue, she gave one, on meeting her,

a sense of openly taking one’s measure. Sometimes you could fairly

see her making up her mind; and her “Humph!” was eloquent of her

unflattering conclusion. Although really kind-hearted, her range of

sympathies, when I first met her, seemed narrow, her judgments harsh

and often faulty; it seemed easy for her to condemn and sentence

others before she had half the evidence. As time passed it was a study

to see her growing and expanding under the Doctor’s more tolerant

influence and example, and with her increasing knowledge of life and

human sorrows. Sometimes it would be just a mild, “Oh, Ethel, Ethel!”

as she would rail at something or somebody; sometimes he would laugh

indulgently at her caustic and often accurate “sizing up” of persons

who could not, as she would boast, “pull the wool” over _her_ eyes,

as they could over “Dearie’s”; again he would drop a word or two that

would enlighten her--some extenuating explanation; some recital of

good in the one she was condemning. If she pried about any of his

patients, his lips would be sealed, but though replying to her abrupt,

unwarrantable questions so as not to betray professional secrets, he

would, in so doing, help her to view more charitably what she was so

readily inclined to condemn. There were times, though, when she would

close her lips with a snap, unconvinced, though silent; again she would

say she did not believe he knew what he was talking about; or, if he

knew, he himself did not believe what he was saying; but more often

she would stop her tirade and make a wild dash at him, patting his

benevolent face as she exclaimed, “You old Dearie! You think the whole

world is as good as you are!” and sometimes she would include, “You and

Dr. Arnold--she’s ’most as good as you, but not quite.” And he would

smile at her as one would at a spoiled child.

Her devotion to him was beautiful; she tried to keep him from going

beyond his strength, for patients, recognizing his tolerant, helpful

nature, made many demands upon him; his wife called it imposing upon

him; and if she had dared, would often have berated soundly the

“whining women” who came to him for help and stayed so long after

office hours. I have seen her follow such persons with her scornful

glance as they came out of the office, when I knew she was making a

tremendous effort to keep her tongue between her teeth. All this, and

much more, I could see or divine in my four years’ association with

these friends. I saw, too, that as the years passed and sorrows came,

she softened and broadened, never, however, losing her spiciness, and

never judging either me or “Dearie” as critically as we deserved,

however severe she might be with the rest of humanity. She has

continued one of my staunchest friends through all the years, and

somehow I am always the better for the thought of her unbounded belief

in me.

Months before our intimacy grew, she knew of many of my makeshifts

and economies, for she kept a sharp lookout upon everything going on

in that vicinity--not only in her doctor’s practice, and in mine, but

also in that of the other physicians in the huge office-building. I am

sure she could have told any one of us what patients were in the habit

of coming to our offices, how long they usually stayed, and many other

facts gleaned in her numerous little journeys through the corridors.

I spent many evenings in their rooms, and borrowed books from the

Doctor’s large library; looked after them when they were ill; and

they looked after me that I should not get ill, she in practical ways,

and he in help and counsel of an immaterial but quite as essential a

nature. As we became better acquainted, she would scold me because

I did not have a “decent bed”; would upbraid me for not going more

regularly to my boarding-place; or not getting myself more substantial

meals. Sometimes when I would come in, worn from a hard case, and too

tired to think of supper, she would come and march me into their rooms

and, in her brusque but kind way, insist on my taking a cup of tea,

or some hot food: “I’ll get the beefsteak into your stomach first,

and then Dearie can talk to you about your ‘case’--but not a word

till I have my way”; thus would she domineer over me, chide me for

neglecting myself, and scold Doctor for not scolding me. There was no

nonsense about her; she had no patience with half measures, or with

procrastination when promptness was indicated.

It was on a blustering evening in March, during my second year of

practice, that something came to me through Dr. Randolph that was

the beginning of one of the dearest and deepest joys of my life. And

yet another decade was to pass before I was to experience the great

friendship toward which a chance act of the Doctor’s on that wild March

night so inevitably contributed.

I had been attending a case of puerperal fever, a patient of Dr.

Wyeth’s--the Doctor having been suddenly called out of town shortly

after the confinement. For two weeks or more it was an anxious time

for me. The patient was in a serious condition; she belonged to an

influential family; friends and relatives were solicitous, some

officious. On my first visit I had found the condition disturbing, and

it grew rapidly more so. Pressure was brought to bear on the husband

to dismiss “that girl doctor” and employ someone more experienced. My

professional skin was painfully thin in those days--it seemed such a

crime to be young. I felt such comments keenly, and though I could not

have blamed the husband had he yielded to the requests of the friends,

he did not. The case pulled through and was a real triumph for me,

and later some who had sneered at “the girl doctor” came to her for

treatment. But it was a strenuous time, and I was worn and anxious; and

in the evening, on returning to the office, it was a great consolation

to talk over the case with Dr. Randolph, and listen to his helpful

suggestions, or his emphasis of the encouraging symptoms.

On that eventful night in March, though my patient had then passed the

danger-point, I was in that overwrought state where I could bear to

talk or think only of her. Recognizing this, Dr. Randolph discussed

the case with me briefly, congratulating me on the patient’s assured

safety, then said firmly: “Now we will dismiss this from our minds.

You are going to rest while I read something to you that will make you

forget Mrs. Leighton and her pulse and temperature; so lie down and be

quiet.” I obeyed.

Seating himself in a big chair beside me, he opened a little

olive-green volume and read to me an essay called “Strawberries.”

Jaded, anxious, and overwrought as I was, the crispness and freshness

of that essay came to me as the most welcome and delicious restorative

I have ever known. I forgot my cares, forgot the blustering March

outside, I was transported to summer and sunshine, bobolink music, and

the joy of life in heaping measure. My very soul was steeped in summer.

I sniffed the clover-scented air of those high upland meadows where

wild strawberries grew. I stooped low, parting the grass and daisies,

gathering the fragrant berries, while the breath of June meadows came

up in my face, and the light and warmth of June skies enveloped me.

The essay finished, Dr. Randolph wrote on the fly-leaf of the book

my name and the date, and gave it to me. It was “Locusts and Wild

Honey”--the first book of John Burroughs’s that I ever owned, or knew.

Were there nothing else to be grateful to the Doctor for, the bestowal

of that book, and of all that it later brought into my life, would make

me forever deeply his debtor.

For two or more years it was the only book of this author that I

owned; but as soon as I could indulge myself in book-buying, his

were the first that I secured. I remember so well the three-quarters

guilty feeling I had in ordering them; it was such unmitigated

self-indulgence; they were so distinctly a purely personal pleasure,

and I had so long schooled myself to regard self-indulgence as

reprehensible. Here was a sober little Stoic taking almost her first

dip into epicureanism; she had many qualms of conscience, but many

thrills of pride as well, each time that another olive-green volume was

added to the row. The “Strawberries” had done it! Doubtless God _might_

have created a more seductive and more delicious berry, but doubtless

God never did!

It was many years after I had grown to know and love the author through

his books before I met him face to face. Through his writings I had

learned to love all outdoors; to feel a kinship with Nature which

had deeply enriched my life; and at length there came a day when I

journeyed to his home, sat by his hearth, and felt a deepening of the

sense of comradeship that I had felt in reading his books. He became my

friend. Many years later I even gathered strawberries with him and Dr.

Randolph from the upland meadows of which he had written in that essay

which was the means of bringing this rare friendship into my life.

Dr. Randolph had a nickname for me which had grown out of our reading

James’s “Psychology” together. There had been a good deal said in the

early chapters about “psychosis,” and one day in my attempts to be

funny I had said something about “psycho_sis_” being undignified--that

James should have said “psycho_sister_”; hence he had dubbed me his

“psychosister.”

There had been a time, when my intimacy with the Randolphs began, that

I had felt uneasy at the growing friendship. There was charm in the

companionship with him, and sympathy and congeniality between us; and

when his hand rested on my shoulder in a kindly way I was moved by it,

also by the gentleness and consideration he invariably showed me; but

I soon began torturing myself with doubts and fears. The fact was, I

was no longer innocent: one man, who had no right to, had grown to care

for me more than he should, and I began to wonder if this friendship,

too, might not turn out in that way. I shrank from such an ending to so

beautiful a friendship, then blushed with shame at my unfounded fear.

I was experiencing for the first time what, I think, is one of the

saddest things about transgressions--the feeling of suspicion toward

others that grows in us as soon as we have done wrong ourselves, or

have even nibbled at the fruit of the Tree of Knowledge of Good and

Evil. But I soon put aside this fear as unworthy of my friend, and

enjoyed the intimacy of which I have written--a friendship with which

I am still blessed, and which has been one of the most enlarging and

ennobling of my life.

Interests outside of medicine claimed some of my time, of which

activities in the Working Women’s League, emergency lectures to a

Girls’ Friendly Society, and to nurses in one of the city hospitals,

membership in a German class, in a Browning club, even in a Plato

club, were among the chief. The Browning club, especially, proved

intensely interesting--three or four married couples, three spinsters

(including myself) and one bashful bachelor. None of us, except Dr.

Randolph, knew anything about Browning when we began; the club was not

started in the reverential spirit that I fancy most Browning clubs are.

At first we ridiculed ourselves and Browning not a little; but if we

came to scoff, we remained to pray--or, if we first endured our poet,

then pitied ourselves, we ended by embracing Browning. But the last

stage was slow in coming; we struggled and puzzled and got entangled;

we were helped out by Dr. Randolph, and amused by Mrs. Randolph,

who would not stand--only up to a certain point--what she could not

understand. She would blurt out, “Oh, mercy! let’s stop this moonshine,

and read something we _can_ understand.” And we soon learned that hers

was the sensible view--there was so much that was lucid in Browning

that we came in time to pity the too-easily discouraged readers who

stopped short at the stumbling-blocks.

The Plato Club, conducted by the Universalist minister, was an

incongruous affair--the clergyman, a young lawyer, a factory girl

who wrote poetry, a Vassar graduate, teachers in the seminary, two

seamstresses, a choice assortment of “old maids,” and the “girl

doctor.” They met at my office. I got very little from Plato as we read

it, but the incongruous assembly was a perpetual delight. In a few

months it petered out, but the young lawyer and I formed a club of two

and read Emerson together Sunday evenings (until he became engaged),

and thus cemented a friendship which has grown and strengthened with

the years.

Another of the Browning Club friendships has also proved of lasting

delight. Marion Rockwood, a bachelor-maid who had a studio two floors

above me, was a splendid, energetic creature with a glorious soprano

voice. Both too occupied to see much of each other, we called a

greeting in the morning and at night as we went through the halls. I

loved to hear her trilling away up there in her sky-top, as she went

about busy with household duties, as I with mine. In the years that

followed, reverses and sorrows have come to her, but she has sung on

when her heart was heavy; sung to supply losses that would have crushed

one less stout of heart. Now a great happiness has come into her life;

but whatever of joy or sorrow comes, she will always be the dauntless,

inimitable creature I knew in the old Browning Club days.

The first taste of real wild life, the first taste of any woods life,

since the camp-meeting days, came to me one summer while in U----,

when, joining a jolly crowd of young people, with three elders, we

camped on Lake Piseco in the Adirondacks for two happy weeks.

After leaving the outposts of civilization, driving over a rough

corduroy road for many miles, we camped on that wild mountain lake in

a log-camp; rowed, sailed, fished, swam, tramped, climbed mountains,

and, one memorable night, having followed all day the T-lake trail (a

blazed trail through the deep forest), slept on a bed of boughs in an

open camp. Another night we paddled out with a jacklight and saw a deer

feeding among the lily pads--a never-to-be-forgotten sight. How flat

and cramped and artificial seemed the city life to which we returned

after those care-free days in the woods! But I was soon again absorbed

in the routine of practice, and in the human problems confronting me.

One of the saddest things in connection with my practice was the

loss of a little patient with capillary bronchitis, a lovely child of

three. I had done all I could to save her, had had good counsel, and

had fought desperately. The defeat came to me as a terrible blow. I

reproached myself for not having relinquished the case, feeling sure it

was my incompetency that was at fault; that some other physician might

have saved her. The continued confidence which the family showed in me

was consoling, but I think many such experiences would have tempted me

to abandon medicine entirely.

After the third year of practice, my outlook as a physician, though by

no means brilliant, was encouraging. My practice was steadily growing,

my interests widening, friends and acquaintances increasing. Economy

was still necessary, but I had passed through the trying time when

expenses far exceeded income, through that when the income crept up

till it equalled expenses, and on to that when it exceeded them. Now

each month when Father looked over my books he nodded satisfactorily.

To him my success was assured.

At this juncture came an urgent call to leave all that I had gained and

engage in an entirely new field of medical work--the care of the insane

in a distant part of the state--a branch of medicine toward which I had

had a strong leaning in College.

I found myself in an unenviable state of indecision, but the seductive

letters of the genial Superintendent at the institution at M----

decided me to go to Albany and take the Civil Service examination,

and, that being satisfactorily passed, to go on to M---- on a visit of

investigation. The visit was most enjoyable; the new life and work drew

me powerfully; the assured salary was a great temptation, promising

freedom from financial strain; the friendly physicians I met there--all

conspired to make me consent to return there for a trial month, as soon

as I could arrange matters in U----.

The weeks that followed were busy and exciting. I cleared up my work as

well as I could for the month’s absence, but, not willing to burn my

bridges, retained my office. It was gratifying to see that patients and

friends were unreconciled, even rebellious, at the possibility of my

leaving. My evenings at this time were spent mostly with the Randolphs.

I knew I should never meet friends like them again. As the days passed

we drew nearer in sympathy; we had grown so in the habit of one another

that the thought of separation was painful. Sometimes we sat long

together saying little, not daring to trust ourselves to speak; then

perhaps she would make a dash at me, hug and kiss me vigorously, and

rush from the room, only to rush back again, angry at herself for this

betrayal of emotion. Popping her head in the door, she would call to

the Doctor:

“Come, Dearie, you better come home, too--before you get to

snivelling,”--thus saving the situation.

When we said good-bye, the Doctor told me, haltingly, that he could

never hope to express what a help I had been to both of them, and to

him in particular--“I think you know it, and have known it, and I don’t

know just how I am going to get on without my little ‘psychosister.’”

Although my leaving was ostensibly for a trial month, I felt it was

probably the termination of my life in U----. Toward the last, one of

the surgeons gave me a farewell dinner, and there were luncheons and

teas and cosy little suppers among my intimates. And at length came

the night for leaving. I took my last supper in the home of Dr. Wyeth

where I had always been so warmly welcomed; and she and a jolly crowd

of the Adirondack campers went to the train to see me off. With Dr.

Wyeth I parted with the keenest regret; her help and loyalty had been a

steady light along my path. I knew I was leaving her the lonelier for

my going, but she would say no word to keep me from what looked like

increasing good fortune for me.

Alone in the train I gave myself up to a good cry. I could get

no sleeper till half the journey was made. As I sat, forlorn and

disconsolate, the sole occupant of the car, the train-man came in

and sat down at the farther end to eat his midnight lunch. He must

have pitied my loneliness, for presently he came toward me carrying

his piece of pie on the cover of his dinner-pail, and half-shyly,

half-gruffly, placed it on my lap. The act touched me, and the pie

seemed to take the lump from my aching throat. And when I carried back

the cover, I felt so much lighter hearted that I sat and chatted with

him till we came to the junction where I took the sleeper for M----.

Early in the morning, on reaching the city, I was welcomed to the large

institution where my work has since been for so many years.

Here my life has gone on--a busy, eventful, and, I trust, a useful

one, among persons grievously afflicted, hampered as they are by

vagaries and abnormalities, yet capable of tender affection, of keen

appreciation for services rendered, and of a degree of companionship it

would be hard for an outsider to comprehend. It has been a life rich in

compensations, whatever of deprivation and of limitation it has held;

above all, a life rich in friendships--friendships staunch and leal and

priceless. And it has been crowned in the later years with a signal

friendship which has yielded a measureless satisfaction--a friendship

and comradeship with one whom the world calls great, yet who made a

place in his heart and life for the “Child of the Drumlins,” as he was

wont to name her.

The termination of this record at the beginning of a new epoch in the

writer’s life--an epoch when all the lines of character were converging

to maturity--gives the reader of necessity a sense of incompleteness.

The whole record, as I try to see it from the reader’s point of view,

seems to be like

“one stone stair ...

Ascending, winding, leading up to naught,”

because perforce the superstructure is missing. Yet one who follows the

writer’s efforts to gain the image of her own soul may perhaps learn

herein the better to know his own and also the souls of others; learn,

too, that each of us proceeds on the lines of his own development;

and that all that comes into the mature life is but an extension, an

unfolding, of all that went before. “Our to-days and yesterdays _are_

the blocks with which we build.” Would that we had builded better!

If it were possible to treat the subsequent epochs as candidly as the

earlier ones are here treated, they would not be found lacking in

moving events, in dramatic moments, even in tragedies--some in the

lives of those closely knit to one’s own, some of the soul only, some

in the outer life--but all this cannot be viewed objectively; it is too

close--it is a life of yesterday and to-day, while the other, detached,

and seen through the Spell of the Past, is as a tale that is told.

THE END