A broken arm sustained in my school days is closely linked with another of my girlish romances: One May day, instead of going directly home from school to help with house-cleaning, as I had promised, I went to drive with one of the girls. She was bringing home a seamstress. As we neared the railway track, an approaching train, and simultaneously a newspaper fluttering at the horse’s feet, made him shy and jump. Essie was cool enough, but the seamstress shrieked and grabbed the lines, making the horse wheel, which swung the buggy round and down a bank, throwing us out.
The woman who had caused the accident, though unharmed, howled with all her might, adding to the confusion. Essie picked herself up and chased her horse. I picked myself up and stood, a little dazed, with gravel and cinders ground in my cheeks and hands, with a general bruised sensation, and with my left arm hanging in a limp, queer way.
To a man who asked me if I was hurt, I answered, “No, only my arm is broken.” The by-standers laughed incredulously, but I insisted. They told me to move it; I tried, but could not tell whether it moved or not, till I put my other hand on it to follow it. It felt dead. Putting the pale seamstress and me in a wagon, they drove us home, she groaning and shrieking most of the remaining mile and half-fainting, so that I had to support her with my sound arm.
As I went up the steps, Mother and Sister came toward me, frightened at my bruised face and disordered appearance, and that limp arm. “I’ve come to settle the house,” I said, trying to make light of it, but as they started to cry I begged, “Don’t cry, Mother, or I can’t stand it.” And quickly she braced up and began preparations for the Doctor, only the tremor in her voice showing her anxiety.
Father and the Doctor soon came; neighbours flocked in; someone asked, “Are both bones broken?” Even in my distress I was amused at what, in my recently acquired knowledge of anatomy, I considered woful ignorance—“both” bones, when there is only one in the arm proper!
I can see now the frightened faces of the children peering in at the window as I lay on the couch while the arm was being “set.” I almost wanted to laugh, they looked so distressed. They said I was very brave. There were weighty reasons for my good behaviour, vanity being the chief: Already I had decided to study medicine, and thought that any weakness on my part now would show my unfitness for it; but mainly, I wanted to appear well before the young doctor who was then the hero of my dreams and of those of my friend, Annette. For months previous we had romanced and whispered about him, recording in our diaries every glance he chanced to bestow upon us. Though scarcely aware of our existence, he dwelt in all our air-castles, and we shared him between us in a way girls have before they learn what jealousy means. And now something had happened that brought him right into my home! Here he would speak to me, look at me, and take an interest in me—for we never deceived ourselves that he had ever really shown any interest in us. It was all this that made me oblivious to the pain, if, indeed, there was much pain. I was quietly elated. While driving home I had exulted in the thought that as our family physician lived so far away, Father would be sure to call the young doctor.
While he was working over me I could hardly wait to see how Annette would look when I should tell her all about it. What a silly happy girl I was with my broken arm! Even having to stay out of school was compensated for by his daily visits. I treasured his lightest word. He whisked in, breezy and cheery. It was delightful to hear him speak my name—his rich, full voice, and his slight stammer—I doted on them. Days when the splints had to be changed and the bandage loosened were red-letter days, as his calls were then lengthened.
One day just before he came I had read two statements in the Bible that had amused me: “A horse is a vain thing for safety,” and, “The arms of the wicked shall be broken.” He laughed heartily when I told him what I had found, and leaning over my chair as he looked on the page, asked with engaging stammer, “Is th-that really in the B-bible, Genie?” That was told with unction to Annette when she came after school—ostensibly to keep me informed about the lessons, but chiefly to get reports of the daily visits. She envied me then, but her time of rejoicing came later when he treated her for jaundice; only, she complained, jaundice wasn’t as interesting as a broken arm—one “looked such a fright”; and, if the truth must be told, by the time her jaundice developed we had both become somewhat disenchanted.
Our unfeeling idol remained in ignorance of our adoration, and actually wooed and married an attractive young woman of his own age! We tortured ourselves with watching the progress of this courtship, and tried hard to pose as blighted beings during the week of his wedding. At the fatal hour that gave him to another, we agreed to withdraw from the gaze of the cold world and battle with our sorrow alone. It fell to me to pick Grandma’s raspberries at that hour; but the hands could perform their task though the heart was wrung with grief. The seclusion of the berry-patch was welcome; there would I wrestle with this cup. I thought of Annette and hoped she was as secluded as I, and wondered if her heart was as heavy. Picking the berries, I recited aloud “The Lonely One” (the most melancholy poem I could think of) and tried to picture the long years of desolation ahead of me. But my recollection is that, try as I would, I could not induce the requisite degree of misery. And not long after, Annette and I confessed to each other, rather guiltily, that for some time our feelings had not been as heartfelt as we had led each other to suppose.
Thus ended our romance about “Apollo,” as we named him in our diaries.