CHAPTER XXIII
IN WHICH DOCTOR HOYLE SPEAKS HIS MIND
Doctor Hoyle sat in his office staring straight before him, not as if he were looking at David Thryng, who sat in range of his vision, but as if seeing beyond him into some other time and place. David had been speaking, but now they both were silent, and the young man wondered if his old friend had really been paying attention to his words or not.
"Well, Doctor," he said at last.
"Well, David."
"You don't seem satisfied. Is it with my condition?"
"Your condition? No, no, no! It's not your condition. Yes, yes—fine, fine. I never saw such a marvellous change in my life, never!"
David smiled over the old doctor's stammer of enthusiasm. It was as if his thoughts, fertile and vehement, and the feelings of his great, warm heart welled up within him, and, trying to burst forth all at once, tumbled over themselves, unable to secure words rapidly enough in which to give themselves utterance.
"Then why so silent and dubious?"
"Why—why—y—young man, I wasn't thinking anything about you just then." And again David laughed, while his wiry old friend jumped up and walked rapidly and restlessly about the small apartment and laughed in sympathy. "It's not—not—"
"I know." David grew instantly sober again. "Of course the little chap's case is serious—very—or I would not have brought him to you."
"Oh, no, no, I'm not thinking of Adam, bless you, no." The doctor always called his little namesake Adam. "I'm thinking of her—the little girl you left behind you. Yes—yes. Of her."
"She's not so little now, Doctor; she's tall—tall enough to be beautiful."
"I remember her,—slight—slight little creature, all eyes and hair, all soul and mind. Now what are you going to do with her, eh?"
"What is she going to do with me, rather! I'll go back to her as soon as I dare leave the boy."
"But, man alive! what—what are—you can't live down there all your days. It's to be life and work for you, sir, and what are you going to do with her, I say?"
"I'll bring her here with me. She'll come."
"Of course you'll bring her here with you, and you—you'll have plenty of friends. Maybe they'll appreciate her, and maybe they won't; maybe they won't, I say; Understand? And she'll c—come. Oh, yes, she'll come! she'll do whatever you say, and presently she'll break her heart and die for you. She'll never say a word, but that's what she'll do."
"Why, Doctor!" cried David, appalled. "I love her as my own life—my very soul."
"Of—of course. That goes without saying. We all do, we men, but we—damn it all! Do you suppose I've lived all these years and not seen? Why—we think of ourselves first every time. D—don't we, though? Rather!"
"But selfish as we are, we can love—a man can, if he sets himself to it honestly,—love a woman and make her happy, even without the appreciation of others, in spite of environment,—everything. It's the destiny of women to love us, thank God. She would have been doomed surely to die if she had married the one who wanted her first—or to live a life for her worse than death."
"Oh, Lord bless you, boy, yes. It's a woman's destiny. I'm an old fool. There—there's my own little girl, she's m—married and gone—gone to live in England. They will do it—the women will. Come, we'll go see Adam."
The doctor sprang up, brushed his hand across his eyes, and caught up a battered silk hat. He turned it about and looked at it ruefully, with a quizzical smile playing about the corners of his eyes. "Remember that hat?" he asked.
"Well do I remember it. You've driven many a mile in many a rainstorm by my side under that hat! When you're done with it, leave it to me in your will. I have a fancy for it. Will you?"
"Here, take it—take it. I'm done with it. Mary scolds me every day about it. No p—peace in life because of it. Here's a new one I bought the other day—good one—good enough."
He lifted a box which had fallen from his cluttered office table, and took from it a new hat which had evidently not been unpacked before. He tried it on his head, turned it about and about, took it off and gazed at it within and without, then hastily tossed it aside and, snatching his old one from David put it on his head, and they started off.
Hoyle had been placed in a small ward where were only two other little beds, both occupied, with one nurse to attend on the three patients. One of them had broken his leg and had to lie in a cast, and the other was convalescing from fever, but both were well enough to be companionable with the lonely little Southerner. Hoyle's face beamed upon David as he bent over him.
"I kin make pi'chers whilst I'm a-lyin' here," he cried ecstatically. "That thar lady, she 'lows me to make 'em. She 'lows mine're good uns." David glanced at the young woman indicated. She was pleasant-faced and rosy, and looked practical and good.
"He's such an odd little chap," she said.
"What be that—odd? Does hit mean this 'er lump on my back?" He pulled David down and whispered the question in his ear.
"No, no. She only means that you're a dear, queer little chap."
"What be I quare fer?"
"What are all these drawings? Tell us what they mean."
"This'n, hit's the ocean, an' that thar, hit's a steamship sailin' on th' ocean, like you done tol' me about. An' this'n, hit's our house an' here's whar ol' Pete bides at; an' this'n's ol' Pete kickin' out like he hated somethin' like he does when we give Frale's colt his corn first." The other small boys from their beds laughed out merrily and strained their necks to see. "These're theirn. I made this'n fer him an' this'n fer him."
He tossed the pictures feebly toward them, and they fluttered to the floor. David gathered them up and gave them to their respective owners. The old doctor stood beside the cot and looked down on the little artist. His lips twitched and his eyes twinkled.
"Which one is y—yours?" he asked.
"I keep this'n with the sea—an'—here, I made this'n fer you." He paused, and selected carefully among the pile of papers under his hand. "You reckon you kin tell what 'tis?"
The doctor took the paper and regarded it gravely a moment, then lifted his eyebrows and made grimaces of wonderment until the three patients in the three little beds were in gales of laughter. At last he said:—
"It's a pile of s—sausages."
"Hit hain't no sausages. Hit's jest a straight, cl'ar pi'cher of a house, an' hit's your house, too, whar brothah David lives at. See? Thar's the winder, an' the other winder hit's on t'othah side whar you can't see hit."
The doctor turned the paper over and regarded it a moment. "Show me the window. I—I see no window on the other side."
Again the three little invalids laughed uproariously at their visitor. David smilingly looked on. How often had he seen the delightful old man amuse himself thus with the children! He would contort his mobile face into all the varying expressions of wonder and dismay, of terror or stupefaction, and his entrance to the children's ward was always greeted with outcries of delight, when the little ones were well enough to allow of such freedom.
"Haven't you one to send to your sister?" asked David, stooping low to the child and speaking quietly. The boy's face lighted with a radiant smile that caused the old man to stand regarding him more intently.
"We'll sen' her this'n of the sea. You reckon hit looks like the ocean whar the ships go a-sailin' to t'othah side o' the world?" He held it in his slender fingers and eyed it critically.
"How did you come to try to make a picture of the sea when you never saw it?"
"Do' know. I feel like I done seed th' ocean when I'm settin' thar on the rock an' them white, big clouds go a-sailin' far—far, like they're goin' to anothah world an' hain't quite touchin' this'n."
"I wondered why you had your ship so high above the sea."
"I don't guess hit's a very good'n," said the child, ruefully, clinging to the scrap of paper with reluctant grasp. "You reckon she'd keer fer this'n?"
"I reckon she'd care for anything you made. Give it to me, and I'll send it to her."
"She tol' me the sea, hit war blue, an' I can't make hit right blue an' soft like she said. That thar blue pencil, hit's too slick. I can't make hit stay on the papah."
"What are these mounds here on either side of the sea?"
"Them's mountains."
"But why did you put mountains in the sea?" The boy looked with wide eyes dreamily past the two men so attentively regarding him.
"I—I reckon I jes' put 'em thar fer to look like the sea hit war on the world. I don't guess the'd be no ocean nor no world 'thout the' war mountains fer to hold everything whar hit belongs at."
"I shall bring you a box of paints to-morrow if the nurse will allow you to have them. I'll provide an oilcloth to spread around so he won't throw paint over your nice clean bed," he said to the pleasant-faced young woman.
"That's all right, Doctor," she said.
"Then you can make the blue stay on, and you can make the ocean with real water, and real blue for the sky and the sea."
The child's eyes glowed. He pulled David down and held him with his arm about his neck, and whispered in his ear, and what he said was:—
"When they're a-pullin' on me to git my hade straight an' my back right, I jes' think 'bout the far—far-away sea, with the ships a-sailin' an' how hit look, an' hit don't hurt so much. I kin b'ar hit a heap bettah. When you comin' back, brothah David?"
"Does it hurt you very much, Hoyle?"
"I reckon hit have to hurt," said the child, with fatalistic resignation. "I don't guess he'd hurt me 'thout he had to." He released David slowly, then pulled him down again. "Don't tell him I 'lowed hit hurted me. I reckon he'd ruthah hurt hisself if he could do me right that-a-way. You guess I—I'm goin' to git shet o' the misery some day?"
"That's what we're trying for, my brave little brother," and the two physicians bade the small patients good-by and walked out upon the street.