DR. FOREST AT HOME.
The doctor was about forty years old, but his hair was beginning to
turn gray and his fine head was a little bald upon the top. He was about
the medium height, muscular, with handsome broad shoulders, and very
slightly inclined to stoutness. He had fine grey eyes, which he was in
the habit of half closing when anything puzzled him. It was an
exceedingly benevolent and expressive face, which won utter confidence
at the first glance. He wore light, steel-bowed spectacles, which he
never removed, apparently, from one year’s end to another. In repose,
his mouth had an expression of severity; and when studying, he had a
curious habit of protruding his under-lip; but the moment he spoke this
mouth became handsome, expressing the large-heartedness and the ready
humor that made him a favorite with all who knew him.
About the old house of the doctor, there was a quaint and dignified air,
given by the books and numerous pictures, most of them quite old, and by
the heavy antique furniture, relict of a former generation. It was not
the air of wealth exactly, yet no one could suspect, from the general
appearance of things, that there was a chronic scarcity of money in the
family, and that the gentle Mrs. Forest had such sore difficulty in
making ends meet. This, too, when the doctor was the best physician for
miles around, and quantities of money were due him in all directions.
The truth was, he could not collect what was due him. Unless absolutely
driven to the wall, he could not ask any of his patients for money; and
when they wished to return equivalents for his services, in the shape of
corn, and apples, and potatoes, he said not a word until the cellar
became so full that Dinah rebelled. In the spring, when seed potatoes
gave out at planting time, every farmer knew where to make up his
deficit; though in such cases he never thought of paying the good doctor
money for them, but promised to return them at harvest time, not being
particular at all to consider that a bushel now was worth five or ten in
the autumn. Still, the doctor did not complain, being gentle to a fault,
though he took note of all things. As to his children, he confessed
frankly that he did not know how to bring them up, and when he was in
doubt about any matter of discipline, he generally let them have their
own way. An incident will illustrate his method: the large room where
Mrs. Forest and the twins slept was directly beside the doctor’s, and as
they did not like the darkness a lamp was always kept burning there. One
night when the doctor, having been up all the previous night, had gone
to bed early, he was prevented from sleeping by a tin-whistle in the
mouth of Leila. He called out to her to stop, as he wished to go to
sleep. Presently there came to the doctor’s ears a faint little “_toot!
toot!_” from the whistle. Linnie tried hard to hush her sister, and
reminded her of the voice from the next room. “Oh, its only papa!” said
Leila impatiently; which, the doctor hearing, caused him to investigate
the motive of the child’s remark, and philosophizing upon the subject,
he went to sleep finally to the accompaniment of the “_toot! toot!
toot!_” which Leila kept up until she was tired of it.
Mrs. Buzzell, Clara’s Sunday-school teacher, and an old friend of Mrs.
Forest, had a very tender spot in her heart for the doctor, whom she
regarded, and rightly too, as one of the best physicians in the world.
No one understood her internal perturbations as he did, and she took all
the medicines he prescribed with a faith that was somewhat remarkable,
considering that she had been under his treatment for twelve years and
more, and still required his services more than ever. Probably her
sublime faith was based on the conviction of the awful things that
_would_ have happened but for his medicines. She lived a lonely life by
herself, and was very fond of spending an afternoon at the doctor’s
house, and having long conversations on nothing in particular with Mrs.
Forest. Her visits were sometimes almost an infliction to Mrs. Forest,
who had a strong housewifely pride in nice teas, which the chronic
scarcity of money, before mentioned, rendered difficult to attain in
many instances. To be sure there was always bacon and a barrel of fine
hominy in the kitchen, which sufficed for Dinah’s southern tastes, and
the family could always fall back upon these if necessary, and the
latter at least was never absent from the family breakfast; but they
could hardly serve a respectable tea-table where cake and creamy hot
biscuits were a _sine qua non_ according to all good housekeepers.
On one occasion, just before breakfast, Mrs. Buzzell sent a note to her
friend expressing her intention to spend the afternoon with her, “if
agreeable.” Now it just was not “agreeable,” for the commissariat was at
a low ebb—lower, indeed, than it had ever been; but Mrs. Forest, of
course, sent back a polite answer expressing delight at the prospect of
the visit, not even dreaming, probably, of the conventional fib that her
answer contained.
While she was writing the reply for the messenger to take back to Mrs.
Buzzell, Dinah’s soul was being tried unusually in the kitchen by the
conduct of the twins, which reached a climax when one of them actually
threw a kitten into Aunt Dinah’s boiling hominy kettle. She was
long-suffering, though her threats were severe and frequent; but this
time her patience gave way entirely, and taking off a colossal
carpet-slipper she spanked the offending twin right soundly. Mild Mrs.
Forest hearing the uproar from the kitchen, sent Dan to bring the
children to her room. Both were howling at the top of their voices, for
one never cried without the other joining in on principle. Then she went
down to the kitchen and reproved Dinah for taking the discipline of the
children into her own hands. Dinah was too exasperated to be reasoned
with. She burst out—
“I bars eberyting wid dem chil’en, missus; but _I clar to God, I won’t
hab dem kittens in de hominy pot_!”
To the outside world, the Forest family was a model of domestic
felicity, and not without cause as family life goes; but Mrs. Forest was
very far from a happy woman. This was due partly to her delicate health,
which gave her a disposition to “borrow trouble,” and to look too much
beyond the grave for the happiness a stronger and more philosophical
nature would have created out of her really fortunate environment. At
times, she still suffered from the loss of the baby Arthur, though he
had been dead some eight years. The doctor could hardly understand this
as a normal expression, and she often accused him of a lack of sympathy.
He himself submitted calmly always to the inevitable, learned the lesson
that any misfortune afforded, applied it practically to his daily life,
and in no other way remembered a suffering that was in the past. His
wife, he said, had a passion for the “luxury of woe,” and this was a
diseased condition. Dan gave her a world of trouble. She had made an
idol of him from his birth, and it was indeed hard to feel that her deep
love for him was not sufficient to cure him of a single one of his bad
habits. Years of the most loving effort to make him take off his hat on
entering the house, had been unavailing; and he still tramped through
her tidy house with dirty shoes every day of his life, and though nearly
fourteen years of age, it is questionable whether he had abandoned the
charming habit of coming down stairs astride the baluster. He teased the
twins, worried Clara whenever an opportunity offered, went and came
without asking permission of his mother, and at table he was
distressingly awkward. On this particular morning the doctor said to
him, a little after sitting down to the breakfast-table and while he was
serving the hominy—
“Now Dan, my boy, I’ve been cheated out of my morning sleep by the
hubbub in the house, and my nerves are irritated; so you’ll save them a
shock and much oblige me if you will give me warning when you are going
to upset your glass, or wipe your knife off the table with your sleeve.”
Dan had more affection for his father than for any other being in the
world. He hung his head, but answered good-naturedly, “I’m not going to
do either this morning, sir.” During this reply he was vigorously mixing
a piece of very hard butter in the hominy which his father had just put
into his plate, and the result was the landing of his plate, bottom
upwards, on the floor by the way of his legs. Mrs. Forest uttered an
exclamation of despair; but Clara quietly rose, removed the _debris_,
and brought Dan another plate. This time, Dan was really distressed, and
his mortification was increased by the doctor’s laughing.
“Never mind, my son,” he said, putting his right hand kindly on Dan’s
shoulder. “This time it was more my fault than yours. I made you nervous
by my criticism.” The idea of Dan’s being nervous was an exquisite
compliment from its perfect novelty. The doctor saw that the boy for
once was greatly ashamed, and so he immediately changed the subject to
Leila, who sat in her high chair on Dan’s right. “So Miss Mischief,” he
said, “you set out to cook a kitten in the hominy this morning did you,
eh? I’m very glad you failed, and I advise you to not try it again.”
“I sall took ee titten to-maw-yer, I sall.”
“You will cook the kitten to-morrow, will you?” he said, repressing a
disposition to laugh. “Look here, Leila, if you try that again I hope
you’ll get a much larger dose of Dinah’s slipper, and you shall not have
a kiss from papa, nor come to the table with him for a whole week.”
“Poor kitty! her toes ache so,” said Linnie, who spoke quite plainly
compared with her sister, and whose heart also was more tender. The
doctor praised Linnie’s sympathy with the kitten, and while reading
Leila a little lecture on cruelty, the bell rang, and he was called off
to see a patient.
During the day Mrs. Forest consulted Clara on the subject of the
afternoon tea, for she was sorely perplexed and mortified, as she said,
because there was nothing in the house.
“Why, mamma, I don’t see why you should bother yourself. We have nice,
fresh, Graham bread, some delicious cheese, any quantity of fruit, and
Dinah can make some hominy. Mrs. Buzzell don’t ever taste hominy, and
she’ll be delighted with it, I know. Papa would find such food
excellent; and I am sure what is good enough for papa is good enough for
anybody in this world.”
“Yes, my child, it is _good_ enough, no doubt; but it is such an odd
jumble. Who ever heard of such a tea? You know Mrs. Buzzell’s appetite
is fastidious, and I like to have something savory for her. Of course
the doctor’s credit is good at the grocer’s, and everywhere, for that
matter, but I have never used it, and never intended to; but I think I
shall have to make an exception to-day. We _must_ have some butter and
some sugar.”
“Now, mamma, you know Mrs. Buzzell is always complaining about her
digestion. On principle, you should never give her anything but simple
food—just like this tea we are going to have; and I wouldn’t put the
cheese on the table either. It may destroy the effect of papa’s
medicines,” added Clara, laughing.
Mrs. Forest descanted with much bitterness upon the laxity of the doctor
in collecting the money due him. “Well, my child,” she said, after a
pause, “I must trust to Providence.” This intention she always expressed
after dwelling upon the doctor’s bad management and the exhausted state
of the larder; but she evidently thought there was great virtue in such
trust, as if Providence ought to be highly complimented by her
confidence. This consultation took place in the kitchen pantry, and was
finally ended by the entrance of Dinah with a slop-pail from the upper
regions, at the same time that a country wagon drove around to the
kitchen door.