Chapter XI: Through the Gate of Dreams (2)

“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.”