Elsie

FROM THE NORWEGIAN OF ALEXANDER L. KJELLAND
BY MILES MENANDER DAWSON
CHICAGO CHARLES H KERR & COMPANY 1894
Copyright 1889 by Miles Menander Dawson
MADAM SPECKBOM owned a house which was called “Noah’s Ark.” Down in the bright comfortable rooms on the side toward the sun, she lived herself; above lived Miss Falbe with her brother; and up in the garret—there were only two stories—in attic rooms, under the stairs and back of the chimney-pots lived a number of unclean animals which went under the common title, “the gang.”
Madam Speckbom was not only a wise woman; she was literally a klog-kone or quack as well; for she was a doctor or, as the regular doctor called her, a quack.
But that did not trouble Madam greatly; she had her good, sure practice, and her skill brought her money and professional triumphs as well.
That part of the community which called Madam Speckbom was, of course, not the finest, but beyond comparison the most numerous. It might be that she had five or six patients lying under treatment in little nooks and closets of which there was an incredible number in the old house; and especially of an evening after working-hours, her time was all taken up with making her calls or receiving patients of all kinds.
And then when some one came among them, who had been under the treatment of the regular practitioner—district-physician Bentzen—then there was a sparkle in Madam Speckbom’s little brown eyes, and she tossed the three gray curls which hung from a comb over each ear, while she said: “When you come from so learned a gentleman, surely you can’t be helped by a toothless old woman.”
Then there was a course of maneuvering necessary before she sympathized with the patient; but once she had taken him under treatment, she showed a very especial concern for this one whom the regular doctor “had given up.”
And among the town’s people—even up among the higher classes—there were spread numberless accounts of Madam’s wonderful cures; and one had only to mention her name before Dr. Bentzen, and the old gentleman would jump up, swear and curse—grow fiery red about the head, seize his hat and make off.