“We certainly do.” They had been amused ever since I had arrived to note the change in my speech.
After we had been home a few days my mark in anatomy came. Belle and I had been so scared when we had gone into “Our Caddie’s” examination, that we had cared little about what marks we would get, if we could only squeeze through. On opening the envelope I thought there must be some mistake, for there was my name and number and my standing (in “Our Caddie’s” own handwriting)—“100 plus 1.” She had deigned to write on the card: “This means that you stood ninety-nine on your paper, and, with twenty perfect plus marks in quizzes, it makes your standing 100 plus 1. One other in the class stood the same.” Miss Thorndike was that other. It was always a puzzle to us both that she and I received this high rating from the exacting Dr. Matson, for others in the class were unquestionably better students than we were. My rejoicing, however, was keen—until I thought of what Belle would say; but she was off in the country, and I did not see her for some weeks; still there was that fly in the ointment.
During that vacation I took the agency for a book called “Milestones,” and went about the village canvassing—distasteful work, but I cleared fifty dollars by the means. One day when storm-stayed in a poor little house on the east side of the town, an unforgettable experience came to me. I usually found my best customers in such houses, and rather enjoyed their rapt attention as I expatiated on the treasures in the book; for, discarding the printed tale which the publishers had advised agents to use, I adapted myself to each audience in turn, selecting for bait the pictures and articles that I thought they would best jump at. Sometimes, under their interested attention, I would wax eloquent. I always knew in advance when an order was forthcoming, but enjoyed quite as much getting my victim on the hook as securing the order. As I waited that day in the little house till the rain should cease, a big, strapping neighbour, rushing in out of the storm, puffing and red-faced, blurted out, “John Stevens’s girl’s dead—died at four o’clock.” Little did she or the others know! To them it was just a piece of village news, yet this girl was my dearest friend! I had known her death was near, but to learn of it in that squalid home, and from this loud-mouthed woman, seemed a desecration. I sat very still till the rain ceased, hearing their talk as in a dream.
Our old cat’s time had come to go that summer, and I decided that I might relieve it of its existence, at the same time that I could add to my knowledge of comparative anatomy, and give the children in our street some instruction as well. So, improvising a place in our back-yard under the Baldwin apple tree, I started out bravely to chloroform the cat. But its writhings were too much for me; and Sister and our neighbour, Walter, had to take that part off my hands; the rest I did without a qualm, instructing the big-eyed, eager children about the muscles and viscera, and enjoying the amusing questions they asked.
CHAPTER IX The “Medic”—Continued
Our Caddie’s greeting was a pleasant surprise when we went back to College that second year. Stopping me and beaming on me, she congratulated me warmly on my anatomy paper:
“Frankly, Miss Arnold, I was astonished when I learned it was your paper. You seldom did yourself justice in quizzes, it seems.” Even to this graciousness I was so constrained I could only blush and look pleased; but some years later when she visited in the city where I was practising, and I was driving out with her and another woman physician, I confessed my former fear. How she laughed and melted! Then, turning suddenly, she asked in her old manner,
“Did you think I would eat you?” For an instant I almost trembled, as in the old days, but her merry smile soon followed. Since then the utmost cordiality has existed between us.