ONE OF DR. FOREST’S PATIENTS.
The doctor used to say that “Trust in Providence and keep your powder
dry” was a good injunction, but would be better reversed; and whatever
he believed, Clara subscribed to as if by instinct. So when her mother,
in the kitchen pantry, expressed her determination to trust to
Providence, Clara received it with a little scowl of impatience.
Dinah came into the drawing-room a few minutes later, and Mrs. Forest
and Clara followed her back to the kitchen. The wagon which had just
driven away contained some grateful patient of the doctor. He had left
with Dinah a half dozen nicely-dressed spring chickens, some golden
balls of fragrant butter, and two boxes of fresh honey in the comb. Mrs.
Forest looked silently at her daughter, every feature expressing, “You
see I trusted in Providence.” Clara laughed pleasantly, repressing the
temptation to remind her mother that the wagon must have been on its way
with the welcome treasures long before that decision to trust in
Providence was made; but she only said, “Now you can give Mrs. Buzzell a
nice attack of indigestion. O mamma! your desire to give her something
‘savory,’ as you said, is only a deep-laid scheme to increase papa’s
practice. I see it all now. Mrs. Buzzell is one of his few patients who
pay promptly!”
“Why! what levity!” exclaimed Mrs. Forest, who, now that her anxiety
about a respectable tea was removed, felt at peace with the world, and
her sense of the fitness of things was answered.
Mrs. Buzzell came in good season. She was a prim lady of sixty or more,
dressed in a neat black grenadine dress, open to a point from the
throat. This open space was filled in with spotless illusion lace,
fastened with a little jet brooch. Her white hair was beautifully rolled
in three puffs on either side of her head, and surmounted by a white cap
with a border or frill, and lavender-colored strings. She was a very
active, industrious person, though a sufferer from her ailments. During
the afternoon she spoke of her digestion several times. On these
occasions Clara made a knowing, mischievous sign to her mother, who was
dignifiedly oblivious, apparently, to what her saucy daughter was
thinking.
Clara set the tea-table herself with her mother’s choice old china,
which seemed to feel its rare importance only when arranged upon a snowy
cloth. After all Mrs. Forest’s anxiety, the tea was as delightfully
respectable as her heart could wish. The twins, however, set up in their
high chairs, detracted a good deal from the solemnity of the occasion,
for their behavior, always especially bad when “company” was present,
was sufficient to make Mrs. Buzzell’s cap-border stand up in
consternation. They kicked the under side of the table with the toes of
their little shoes, setting the cups dancing in their saucers, whenever
the supply of honey gave out and was not instantly renewed, or when
reproved by their gentle mother for the quantity of cake they thought
proper to discuss. Whenever their conduct became unbearable, a kind of
semi-yell from Dan distracted their attention for a few moments,
enabling the ladies to continue their mild comments upon the diseases
incident to children, and the superior taste of the new milliner’s
bonnets and caps.
Clara silently watched and anticipated the wants of the twins, wearing a
weary, responsible look, for they weighed upon her young life like the
world upon the shoulders of Atlas. Since they were babies, creeping
about, putting everything animate or inanimate into their mouths, and
calling every man papa who approached them, Clara had gradually assumed
more and more the care of them, being stronger in mind and body than her
mother. Her method of managing these irrepressibles, was very
reprehensible in one respect, but she had been led into it by the
necessity of some method, and the impossibility of moving the rebellious
little tyrants by any reasonable means. She had taken advantage of their
passion for doing anything they were forbidden to do, even though that
in itself were disagreeable to them. For example, after tea the great
desideratum was to get the twins upstairs to bed, for there was little
possibility of quiet conversation where they were. The doctor had just
come in, and was very contentedly sipping his rather insipid tea, and
gathering up what remained of the eatables, to the accompaniment of a
somewhat detailed account of Mrs. Buzzell’s “wretched digestion.”
“Now, Linnie,” said Clara, “you wish to stay down and play, don’t you?
but Clara is going upstairs.” It was never necessary to address but one
at a time, for whatever one decided to do was certain to be immediately
repeated by the other. By the time she had reached the stairs, Linnie
dropped her toys and started, Leila following closely, both determined
to perish rather than stay down-stairs, as they supposed they were
expected to do. Once arrived in the sleeping chamber, similar manœuvres
inveigled the twins into bed, and when they were finally sleeping, Clara
went down to the sitting-room. The doctor noticed her weary look, and
said, “My child, you have too much responsibility. Papa must try to send
you away to school. I have been thinking of your method in managing
those children. Surely you do not think you are right in controlling
them by such motives?”
“I suppose not, papa,” answered Clara, who had sat down on a stool at
her father’s side, and was “resting,” as she used to call it, in the
magnetic caresses of his hand upon her brown hair; “but it saves time.”
“Ah! my daughter. How many follies are committed under that plea! See
what you do by this course. In the first place, you cultivate obstinacy
in the little ones, which is bad enough, and then you dull the fine edge
of your conscience by doing what your better sense condemns, I am sure.”
“She is not so much to be blamed,” said Mrs. Forest. “It is one of Dan’s
tricks. She learned it from him.”
“What does papa’s girl think of that as an excuse?” he asked, studying
her fine face.
“I don’t think it excuses me, papa. I know it does not.”
“You are right. Dan should learn of you, not you of him, in matters of
conscience. I only wish he had your conscientiousness, and your love of
books, too. I never see him reading. I wonder where the young rat is
to-night.” Clara knew pretty well where Dan was, but for his sake she
kept silent. She was always merciful to his delinquencies; probably from
the fear that she did not love him as she believed a sister should love
her brother. No two children could well be more unlike; and for years he
had bullied her unmercifully, though he would not permit others to do
so, and his tough little fist was ready to the head of any urchin in
school or in the street, who dared to show the least disrespect for his
sister. He monopolized that matter himself, and carried teazing to cruel
extremes. She was easily irritated by him, especially in her earlier
years, and whenever he saw her becoming angry, it was a constant
practice of his to seize both her hands and hold them as in a vise,
mocking her impotent rage until it grew to murder in her heart. This was
a persecution so often repeated that it had completely destroyed all her
natural tenderness for him, which the sensitive child reproached herself
for, and sought to atone by treating him with great kindness.
Ah! what a nursery of crooked, abnormal motives the family often is! How
many really deep wrongs are done to impressible children, to which the
parents are utterly blind, because so ignorant of the laws of mental
development. When Clara’s troubles with Dan were unendurable, she had
sometimes gone to her mother. Once she did so, bursting out with, “_I
wish I could kill him_.” The mother was horrified; but, alas! only at
the language; not seeing beneath the surface what madness had been
induced in the child’s heart, nor inferring a necessary and adequate
cause. She only reproved Clara for such “dreadful words,” and sent for
Dan. “My son, why do you teaze your sister so? Do you not know it is
very wicked, and that if you are wicked you will never go to Heaven?” In
truth, she was utterly incapable of comprehending the difficulty between
the children, and as Dan was on his good behavior when his father was
present, and as all the family tacitly agreed to never trouble the
doctor unnecessarily, knowing that he ought to rest during the short
time his practice left him free, he never knew of this peculiar trial of
Clara’s until long after.
When Mrs. Forest would remind Dan of his danger of losing Heaven, she
naturally thought that it should have great weight with him; though if
she could have read his thoughts, she would have quickly seen her
mistake. Heaven, to Dan, meant a country
“Where congregations ne’er break up,
And Sabbaths never end;”
and though he thought such a dull place might do for girls and for
people like the widow Buzzell, he knew perfectly well that it was no
place for a live boy, who liked fishing and setting snares in the woods
much better than any congregation he could imagine.
But to go back to the family circle. When the doctor wondered where the
“young rat” was, Clara kept silent. Mrs. Buzzell hazarded the suggestion
that he might be off with those low Dykes—the Dykes being a family whom
nobody visited, and who were generally set down as “no better than they
should be.” This was precisely where Dan was at that moment, and the
attraction was possibly Susie Dykes, though he took no particular notice
of any one but Jim Dykes, who possessed a pair of old battered foils,
and with them gave the delighted Dan several desultory lessons in the
art of fencing. Jim being a great swaggerer, and a little older than
Dan, was mighty in his eyes; especially when he discoursed on the
“guards” and “passes,” his hat cocked over his left eye, his legs
straddled, and an unmanageable end of tobacco in his mouth.
“It is strange,” said Mrs. Forest, “what Dan finds so agreeable in that
family. I am sure I could not endure the house. Mrs. Dykes is a
slattern, and her children have no sort of bringing up, as I am told.”
“Why,” said the doctor, “I don’t see but Susie is a very nice girl. She
behaves very well indeed—totally unlike that uncouth brother of hers. I
like the pretty way she does her hair.”
“For my part, I distrust girls or women who please only men,” said Mrs.
Buzzell. “I’ve heard several men praise her looks.”
“I’m inclined to think that her charm is not so much in her looks as in
her good nature. She always smiles as if she were happy. The signs of
happiness rest one so;”—and the doctor sighed.
“Men,” said Mrs. Forest, who seldom generalized, “are unsatisfied unless
women are always gay and smiling; but how can we be? Household cares so
drag us down, and the care of children, especially two at a time, is too
much for any one.”
“Yet children used to be considered a blessing,” remarked the doctor,
and added humorously, “but I can see how any woman might be blest to
death by a too frequent repetition of this doubling extravagance of your
sex.”
Mrs. Forest was always annoyed at this suggestion, which the doctor
often teazed his wife with, just to see the expression of impatient
credulity on her face. She pretended not to notice it this time, but
answered, a little spiritedly, “So they are a blessing, of course. I do
not mean to deny that, but one may have many trials about them. I’m sure
I have my share with Dan. He is almost sixteen, and yet I am quite sure
he prefers to be ragged and dirty to looking like a gentleman’s son. It
does annoy me so to think I have no influence over him in this matter.”
“I think, mamma,” said Clara, raising her head from her father’s knee,
“that Susie Dykes will have more influence in that matter than you have.
He made a famous toilet to-day before going out. You should see his
room. It looks like an old cockatoo cage after the bird has been
bathing—only cockatoos can’t leave their towels and stockings scattered
over the floor.”
“Did he really change his stockings?” asked Mrs. Forest in amazement.
“Then there’s something wrong. It must be the first time in his life he
ever did such a thing of his own accord!”
When Mrs. Buzzell rose to go the doctor rose also, and, as usual,
gallantly accompanied her. The conversation on the way was a little
tiresome to the doctor, but his heart was far too kind to permit him to
show it, for he knew that he was much esteemed by this patient, and he
pitied her lonely life. In answer to her complaints about her digestion
he said, “And you ate honey and hot bread to-night. You should have
eaten only a crust of bread, and chewed it well.”
“Oh dear, no—that is, I am never troubled about what I eat at your
house. I can digest anything perfectly well there; but everything
disagrees with me at home. I have told you that often, doctor,” she
added, as if pained that he should not remember.
“Pardon me, I did not forget; but I thought I must take that with a
certain margin, as I am compelled to do much that my women patients tell
me; but I see I must make you an exception, and the result is that my
treatment can do you no good. You need more excitement—a larger life.
While you live such a lonely way, medicines are of little use. You see
the doctor is a humbug, more or less, and must be until he can prescribe
changes in the social conditions as well as of diet and climate. Anyway
considered, doctoring with drugs is more the business of the charlatan
than of the true scientist. The longer I live the more I see the folly
of patching up the stomach and the liver when the true disease is in the
soul.”
“Soul! why, doctor, I was afraid you did not believe in the soul.”
“But I do, only you Christians and spiritualists, so called, have such a
beastly material conception of soul that you can scarcely understand the
scientific faith. Be sure that I believe in the immortality of soul, but
I know that structure corresponds to function; that is the first law of
nature. Now the soul, as you conceive it, is not a spiritual conception,
but some kind of organization—a ghost, in short, having functions, but
the Devil himself cannot define its structure.”
“Well, I am not a scientific person, doctor, so I will not pretend I
know much; but I think I know that the only way to be happy is to keep
as near to Christ as we can.” After quite a long pause, during which
doctor and patient reached the little veranda porch of Mrs. Buzzell’s
home, she added, “Shall I keep on taking that cardiac mixture, or would
you recommend something else?”
“Nothing else,” he said, holding her hand a moment, “only a good-night
kiss from your doctor.” This he added gravely, and then pressed his
grizzly moustache lightly first upon one and then the other of his
patient’s faded cheeks. The prescription was quite new, though the
doctor had often kissed her forehead after sitting by her bed, talking
to her while holding her hand.
“Is this a general treatment?” asked Mrs. Buzzell good-humoredly; “or am
I an exception?”
“This is a special treatment, because specially indicated,” he said.
“You are thoroughly womanly in your nature, and you really need the
magnetism of affection. You suffer more from your secluded life than
most people would. Good-night; I will call soon,” and with that he left
her. To the ordinary observer Mrs. Buzzell passed as a formal prude,
cold and unattractive, but in reality, there was in her heart, an
under-current of refined sensibility. To be sure it would not have been
safe or prudent, at least, for any other man to attempt to kiss her
cheek as the doctor had done, but she knew there was no guile in his
heart, and she justly held his kindness and his deep sympathy with her
as a most precious treasure. Coarse men are wont to scoff at the
attraction women find in ministers and physicians, especially women
whose social conditions are unfortunate; but the solution is very
simple: physicians, at least, generally know more of human nature than
other men do. This is true, of course, only of those of the nobler moral
type. No others win the confidence of refined women, though their vanity
may blind them to the wide difference there is between ordinary and
extraordinary confidence, for every physician, if not every priest,
receives a certain amount of confidence from the nature of his office.
The physician of the high type to which Dr. Forest belongs, knows to a
certainty the amount of mutual sympathy existing between their women
patients and their husbands, when, as is often the case, there is no
verbal confession of grievances; and even when, if such grievances
exist, there is special care taken to conceal them. The kind-hearted and
high-minded physician, especially if he be a man of the world, as all
great physicians have invariably been, is the priestly confessor among
Protestants. He no more thinks of betraying the confidences of his
patients than the Catholic priest does those of the confessional. He is
not restrained from a feeling of honor—there is no restraint in the
case, for there is not the slightest temptation to talk of such
confidences. It is not in that way that the physician regards them. He
has received them by the thousand, and they excite no wonder in his
mind; besides, who could understand them as he does? He receives them
seriously enough, for whatever the cause, suffering is positive and
demands his sympathy, and the true physician accords it as by instinct.
To the vulgar, causes seem often very amusing. To the physician, he who
“dies of a rose in aromatic pain,” is none the less dead than if hit by
a cannon-ball.
When you see two men walking in the street, and another in front of them
trips and falls on the pavement, watch the effect of the accident on the
two men. If one guffaws with amusement, and the other rushes to the
victim, helps him up with grave ceremony and sympathetic words, you may
draw this conclusion: the first is an ignoramus, and very likely an
American; the other is a physician or a Frenchman; for as a rule the
French are incapable of seeing anything comical in an incident fraught
with danger to a fellow-mortal. Not that American men are less generous
and kind-hearted than other people, but they are ashamed of the
imputation of effeminacy, and consider it laudable to conceal the signs
of delicate sensibility.
Mrs. Buzzell could not probably have explained exactly what it was in
the character of Dr. Forest that made him seem so unlike all other men.
She would have naturally called it religion, only the doctor was most
unquestionably different, in his views of social morality and “saving
grace,” from all the devout people she had ever known. She thought
herself a very strict believer in orthodox dogmas, but in truth she
would herself have rejected any “scheme of salvation” that was not some
way capable of including him. Perhaps she could not see clearly how, so
she prayed for him constantly, and believed that God would never suffer
such purity of heart, and such devotion to everything good and true, to
go unrewarded. It was clearly “unreasonable.” She could understand, she
thought, how good works might not count much in themselves, but motives
could never go for naught; and the doctor’s motives were so nobly
superior that they _must_ come by the grace of God. So on that rock she
rested her fears for the doctor’s salvation.