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.”
Jaded, anxious, and overwrought as I was, the crispness and freshness of that essay came to me as the most welcome and delicious restorative I have ever known. I forgot my cares, forgot the blustering March outside, I was transported to summer and sunshine, bobolink music, and the joy of life in heaping measure. My very soul was steeped in summer. I sniffed the clover-scented air of those high upland meadows where wild strawberries grew. I stooped low, parting the grass and daisies, gathering the fragrant berries, while the breath of June meadows came up in my face, and the light and warmth of June skies enveloped me.