Not so wonderful perhaps, after all. If there was a doctor in the
world, besides the soulless visitor of the year before, stupid enough
to praise the workmanship of a cripple’s chair, and never feel himself
roused at the demand made upon his own skill by the cripple, it was
not Dr. Thorndyke. He had not passed half way from the door of Ben’s
room to the bedside before his eye caught the strange, dwarfed, little
figure stationed motionless in the window, but following every movement
in the room with its great, dreamy eyes.
The matron admired and wondered at the careful but swift conclusion of
his study of Ben’s case; and when he had--she did not know how--made
her feel sure he understood it, and had shown so kind an interest in
the old man, and had gone again, it was scarcely five minutes by the
great clock in the hall since he came in. But she did not once imagine
that in the same time he had come closer to Creepy, and seen more
clearly what the poor, twisted little frame and the shrinking heart
were needing, than she had in the whole three years she had taken the
responsibilities of the almshouse upon herself.
“But not now,” he said to himself as he passed the window with so quick
a glance that Creepy had no idea he even saw him; “we want more time,
that child and I. I think there’s a chance there for a doctor to amount
to something, for once in a way.”
So here he was, for Dr. Thorndyke never lost much time when once he
had determined upon a thing; and he was fairly seated beside his new
patient before Creepy had recovered from the amazement of hearing
himself inquired for sufficiently to draw a breath.
“So, so, young man,” said the doctor, stooping for a quick look into
Creepy’s face, “enjoying the free air and the sunshine with the rest of
the world, eh? Well,” and he lifted his hat to catch the breeze, “it’s
a day to make the most of, and I haven’t seen a more tempting place to
pass an hour anywhere. How the light showers down through these yellow
leaves! Is there enough for you and me both for a little while, do you
think?”
Creepy could not have spoken to save his life, but the answer shone out
of his eyes, and the doctor was satisfied with that.
“It’s a day to make one feel like a boy again,” he said, pulling up a
handful of grass and showering the seeds through the sunlight. “And so
they’ve all imagined they were children and gone off to the woods, I
hear?”
“All but me,” said Creepy, nodding at the doctor, with eyes still fixed
upon his face.
“All but you; you thought this was your place, and kept it, eh? Well,
it’s not every one who has wisdom for that, though we all have our
places in the world, if we could but find them.”
“All but me,” said Creepy, nodding again.
The doctor shot another glance into his face. “You’re very much
mistaken,” he said; and then turning to pull more grasses, added
suddenly, “Why didn’t you go with them?”
“I never go anywhere.”
“And why not?” asked the doctor, tossing the seeds out into the air
again. “What would happen if you were to go? A pain here and there? A
pain in that back, for instance?”
The eyes answered again.
“And not a new pain? A pain that comes quite often, and stays as long
as it likes--is there at this very moment, perhaps?”
Creepy nodded, but he could not have spoken for his life. It seemed to
him he was talking face to face with a magician. How should _he_ know,
when the people in the house were never told, could only guess, and he
had seen none of them this morning.
“And don’t you know that’s all wrong?” went on the doctor. “Other boys
of your age play in the sunshine every hour they can get out from the
schoolmaster’s clutches.”
The never-failing answer came to Creepy’s lips, but he did not speak.
“Do you know what runs across the road, just beyond the turn under
those yellow trees? There is a brook down there, and not far below it
passes through a shady spot, and gets very deep and almost as cold as
ice. That’s the very place for trout! Suppose you and I go down when
the season comes round again, say next spring, for instance. There are
some great rocks there under the trees, and we could take it as lazily
as we liked.”
Now the doctor knew very well that if he had proposed that Creepy
should take him on his shoulders and prance away moonward, he could not
have amazed and bewildered him more; and it showed plainly enough in
Creepy’s face, but the doctor would not understand.
“You think it strange I could find the time, don’t you? That is true
enough; it could not come very often--once in a season, perhaps, as a
great treat. But for to-day it is pleasure enough to sit here in the
sunshine. I wonder who made this bench? The same hand that fitted your
chair, perhaps?”
“No,” said Creepy; “it was Ben. He used to make them while he was a
gardener. He got roots and crooked branches in the woods and twisted
them together. That was while he was waiting.”
“Waiting?” asked the doctor. “What was he waiting for?”
“Waiting to be gathered in. The matron says we’re all waiting. All but
me.”
“And why not you? Are you in such haste that you cannot wait? You
_must_ wait for spring, before we go fishing, at least. Then you shall
help me gather branches for just such a seat. I must have one on my
piazza. That is to say, if you can get away from school then, eh?” and
the doctor tossed out more seeds, and they floated away and showered
down over the walk, to start up and make Enoch a deal of hoeing in the
spring.
But nothing to compare with the thoughts he had tossed, and with
seemingly a more careless hand, into Creepy’s heart in the five
minutes he had been sitting on the rustic seat that had been such a
pride to Ben. And there was no waiting with them. Every one had struck
root already, and sprung up into some sudden, bewildering feeling,
until there was a terrible confusion in the little hot-bed. Why had the
doctor come to see him? No one ever came; no one ever sat down to talk
with him. Every one was kind, always kind; but every one went on his
own way. Go fishing! He go fishing? Had he not just told him he never
went anywhere? Could not he see for himself, for did not a doctor know
everything? And how should he help him cut down trees, or how should he
go to school? Schools were made for every one else, that is true; but
no one, except Ben, had ever helped him even so far as to read. Was the
doctor mocking him? Did he not see that he was only made to sit in his
shapeless chair, and feel the pain going up and down the crooked back
like a devouring thing? Why did he talk to him as he would talk to any
one else?
“Shall we call it an engagement?” said the doctor, looking quickly in
Creepy’s face again.
“What did you come here for?” cried Creepy, suddenly, with eyes and
voice. “Why do you ask me such things? You never saw me before!”
The doctor rose up and stood before his chair, stretching himself to
his full height.
“Yes I have seen you before, and you have seen me. You have seen how
strong I am, how light and quick my step is, how full of life all my
veins are, and how that makes it a pleasant thing for me to live. And I
have seen how weak and tired you are, and how your life is only to sit
here and bear pain, as no child ought to do. And that is why I came,
to see what can be done about it all! Don’t you know that sick people
get well, and weak people strong, and crooked limbs are made straight,
sometimes?”
The burning eyes were dropped now, and Creepy only smiled and shook his
head.
“Don’t you know that, my little man?”
“All but me.”
The doctor stooped and lifting the lame child gently from his chair,
gathered him up in his arms and held him, looking down into his face.
“Do you know you are mistaken? I do not think we can make things
altogether straight with you, that is true; but I think we can send
that pain where it will never find its way back again, and put
strength into those limbs, so that you shall go and come with the rest,
and find out what it really is to live and move in God’s world; _that_
is what I want to see about. I do not feel any doubt we shall succeed.
Shall we try?”
The doctor could not see under the great drooping eyelids and the
quivering lashes, but Creepy scarcely seemed to breathe. Not with the
thought of what the doctor had said, for his words only seemed a sound
passing out into the sunshine; their meaning did not touch him as even
a possibility. But he was speaking, was here, was holding him tenderly
in his arms--that by itself was bewildering enough--he could only hold
his breath and lie still.
“So you don’t say no? You are not afraid to try?”
Creepy shook his head.
“Shall we begin to-morrow?”
“Yes.”
“Good,” said the doctor, with a quick but gentle pressure of the strong
arms, and then they placed Creepy carefully in the queer chair; the
doctor looked closely into his face once, and said Good-by. In another
moment he had passed over the walk where the scattered seeds were to
make so much trouble, sprung into the chaise, and given the rein to
the black horse, and the sound of its hoofs was ringing back from
halfway down to the turn in the road under the yellow trees.
Great was the excitement in the almshouse when the matron, after
bottling up the news of the doctor’s visit all day long, poured it out
on the returning party in the evening.
“He had been there for nothing in the world but to see the poor crooked
thing, though with manners enough to make a show of asking for the
rest, and had sat talking under the butternut-tree for a full half
hour, five times as long as he had ever stayed by Ben when he was
dying; which she couldn’t get the child to repeat the half he had
said; but the most she could make out was, he was coming every day,
or for aught she knew three times a day, to try some plan of his own
to straighten the poor thing out: which she was sure it was more like
the Lord regarding the sparrows sold for a farthing than any other
happening she had ever seen, if he had sent a young man of the sense
and skill of that one, all unrequested, to lay himself out to mend a
little life like that. And no one could be more rejoiced than she if
he could do it, nor more ready to give praise for a miracle of her own
times, though at the same time she knew it was only a young doctor who
could afford to go about picking up cases that never sent for him, and
that nobody could say were responsible to him in one way or another, if
he did not choose to see it.”
The basket of nuts for the winter evenings, which had made such work
with the arms of one after another of the party before they got it
home, was forgotten where it stood, while they listened with open
mouths and ears to the matron’s speech, and when Enoch in his haste
to go and see if Creepy looked just the same after what had happened,
struck it with his foot and sent the contents rolling half across the
room, no one said a word, or stirred from his place to gather them up.
“Dear, dear!” said Sue, “but the Lord remembers all in their turn, if
they do but wait his time! And it’s come sooner to him than to some,
but there never was patienter waiting, nor would have been for a
hundred times as long, if it had been His will!”
“Well, there’ll be waiting enough yet, to see what comes of it all,”
said the matron. “Sometimes doctors cure and sometimes they kill, and
sometimes they do nothing at all, which it remains to be seen whether
it will be one or the other with the poor crooked thing.”
“Dear, dear,” said the old woman who had taken the most care of Ben,
“what are we all doing here but to wait?” and then finding there was
really nothing more to be heard, she and Sue bustled off to see about
supper, and then to carry their tired bones to rest, and to dream over
all the events of the wonderful day.