Dr. Merritt had telephoned Mrs. Knapp that he was going to make some
very special tests of her husband’s condition that afternoon, tests
which might be conclusive as to the possibility of recovery. He had
chosen Sunday, he told her, because he wished her to be at home. He
tried to make his voice sound weighty and warning, and he knew that he
had succeeded when, on arriving at the house, he found Mrs. Farnham
there, with a very sober face, twisting her handkerchief nervously in
her hands.
The two women looked at him in silent anxiety as he came in. He
asked with an impenetrable professional manner to have his patient’s
chair rolled into the next room. “It is always better to make those
nerve-reflex tests in perfect quiet,” he explained.
Mr. Knapp with no comment rolled his chair back into the dining-room,
and the doctor closed the door.
* * * * *
In a few moments, Helen, very pale, with frightened eyes, came in to
join the waiting women. She found them as pale as she, motionless in
their chairs, her mother’s lips trembling. She sat down on a stool
beside Aunt Mattie, who patted her shoulder and said something in a
tremulous whisper which Helen did not catch. From the other room, from
behind the closed door, came a low murmur of voices broken by long
pauses. There was no other sound except Stephen’s shout as he played
with Henry’s dog in the back yard.
More voices from behind the closed door, very low, very restrained, a
mere breath which Helen could catch only by straining her ears. She
could not even be sure whether it were the doctor or Father who was
talking. Another long silence. Helen’s heart pounded and pounded. She
wished she could hide her face in Aunt Mattie’s lap, but she could not
move--not till she knew.
Had she heard the voices again? Yes. No. There was no sound from the
next room.
Then, as though the doctor had been standing there all the time, his
hand on the knob, the door suddenly opened.
* * * * *
Now that the time had come the doctor found it hard to get the words
out. He could not think of any way to begin. The three waiting women
looked at him, imploring him silently to end their suspense.
He cleared his throat, sat down, looked in his case for something which
he did not find and shut the case with a click. As if this had been a
signal, he then said hastily, in an expressionless voice, “Mrs. Knapp,
I might as well be frank with you. I do not think it best to go on
with the treatment I have been trying for your husband. I am convinced
from the result of the tests to-day....”
His fingers played nervously with his watch chain. “I am convinced,
I say, that ... that it would be very unwise to continue making an
attempt to cure this local trouble. The nervous system of the human
body, you understand, is so closely interrelated that when you touch
one part you never know what.... The thing which we doctors must take
into consideration is the total reaction on the patient. That is the
weak point with so many specialists. They consider only the immediate
seat of the trouble and not the sum-total of the effect on the patient.
You often hear them say of an operation that killed the patient that it
was a ‘success.’ And in the case of spinal trouble like Mr. Knapp’s,
of course the entire nervous system is.... What I have said applies of
course very especially when it is a case of....”
He saw from the strained, drawn expression on Mrs. Farnham’s face that
she did not understand a word he was saying, and brought out with
desperate bluntness, “The fact is that it would be a waste of time for
me to continue my weekly visits. I now realize that it would be very
dangerous for Mr. Knapp ever to try to use his legs. Crutches perhaps,
later. But he must never be allowed to make the attempt to go without
crutches. It might be....” He drew a long breath and said it. “It
might be fatal.”
When he finished he looked very grim and disagreeable, and, opening his
case once more, began to fumble among the little bottles in it. God!
Why did any honest man ever take up the practice of medicine?
* * * * *
Back of him, through the open door, Lester Knapp could be seen in his
wheel chair, his head fallen back on the head-rest, his long face
white, a resolute expression of suffering in his eyes.
* * * * *
Mrs. Farnham began to cry softly into her handkerchief, her shoulders
shaking, the sound of her muffled sobs loud in the hushed room.
Mrs. Knapp had turned very white at the doctor’s first words and was
silent a long time when he finished. Then she said rather faintly but
with her usual firmness, “It is very hard of course for a....” She
caught herself and began again, “It is very hard, of course, but we
must all do the best we can.”
Helen tiptoed softly into the kitchen and out on the back porch,
closing the kitchen door behind her carefully. Then she took one jump
from the porch to the walk and ran furiously out to the chicken-yard
where Henry and Stephen were feeding the chickens.
At least Stephen was feeding the chickens. Henry was looking anxiously
towards the house, and the moment he saw Helen come out, started back
on a run to meet her. As he ran his shadowed face caught light from
hers.
“It’s all right!” she told him in a loud whisper as they came together.
“The doctor says that Father never can be cured, that he’ll always have
to go on crutches.”
“Oh, _Helen_!” said Henry, catching desperately at her arm. “Are you
sure? Are you sure?”
His mouth began to work nervously, and he crooked his arm over his face
to hide it.
“What’s the matter of you?” asked Stephen, running up alarmed. Helen
got down on her knees and put her arm around the little boy. Her voice
was trembling as she said, “Stevie, dear, Father’s going to stay right
with us. He’s never going to go away.”
Stephen looked at her appalled. His rosy face paled to white. “Was he
going to go _away_ from us?” he asked, horrified.
“Why, of course, he’d have to, to work, if the doctor could cure him.
But the doctor says he can’t. He says Father never will....”
Stephen had been glaring into her face to make sure he understood. He
now pushed her from him roughly and ran at top speed towards the house.
He bounded up on the porch, he burst open the door, the house was
filled with the clamor of his passionate, questing call of “Father!
_Fa-a-ather!_”
TRANSCRIBER’S NOTES:
Italicized text is surrounded by underscores: _italics_.
Obvious typographical errors have been corrected.
Inconsistencies in hyphenation have been standardized.
Archaic or alternate spellings have been retained.
New original cover art included with this eBook is granted to the public domain.