Our Commencement was held in Tremont Temple, the whole University participating—an immense affair, very impersonal, it meant far less to me than our modest little Commencement of Academy days. Coming, too, in the midst of hospital work, it was but an event in the day. Still, I remember a thrill, as of something achieved, when, filing across the platform with hundreds of other students, I received my diploma from President Warren. Each department of the University sat in a body; each student stepped upon the big platform as his name was called out; his diploma was handed him; and the generous applause from his own student-body sounded very good, as (if a “medic”) he walked down the steps on the other side, a full-fledged M.D. Most of the graduates were immediately confronted by the vexed question of where to “locate,” but those of us in the hospital had six months’ grace before that bugbear stared us in the face.
My thesis, on “Heredity,” consisted mainly of quotations from authorities I had consulted in the Public Library. The original matter in it, feeble and inadequate, was chiefly a protest against the marriage of the unfit. I was ardently espousing the cause of Eugenics before there was such a cause, or at least before Galton’s seed-sowing had found a friendly soil. There was an unscientific portion about pre-natal influence, and plenty of advice to prospective parents as to the need of influencing the unborn, so as to make them beautiful of body and soul. There is nothing, I am convinced, that the Young Person hesitates to advise humanity about just as he himself is about to take his plunge into the sea of life. Slumbering somewhere in the dusty archives of Boston University is my lengthy thesis on Heredity—slumbering? but a thing has to live to slumber—this offspring of mine never had any life—it was still-born.
Shortly after Commencement I went to W—— to visit a former class-mate, and also to see Dr. Fenton who had “located” there. He had called at Dr. Carson’s on my arrival, and it was agreed that she and I would go to see him the next day in his new office.
That afternoon it popped into my head to dress up as an old woman and make him think for a moment that he had a new patient. Combing my hair down over my ears, putting on spectacles, and a black gown, bonnet, and veil, I looked very like a little elderly widow. Dr. Carson waited at a near-by drug-store. The lame woman in black hobbled up the steps to the young doctor’s office. His door was ajar. (He was expecting Dr. Carson and me.) I purposely halted as he came toward me, that he might take in my general appearance before I spoke, the better to aid the disguise.
He looked, I thought, a bit disappointed not to see his friends, but the look gave place to one of quiet attention, and even a gleam of pleasure at acquiring a new patient. I saw as he invited me to be seated that he had no suspicion of me, and consequently, could scarcely articulate for laughter. Not having expected to deceive him, except for an instant, I had not thought up a story, but, suppressing my giggles, and assuming the Irish brogue, I began a story about my sick daughter.
His questions, so to the point, so professional, so serious, nearly convulsed me, but turning my suppressed laughter into pretended crying, to gain time to concoct a story, I claimed to be too distressed to talk about what was troubling me.
The Doctor gravely offered me a fan, which act, together with his guarded manner, started my risibilities afresh. He showed clearly that he was annoyed at this queer person, but was doing his best to be patient with her. I had gone so far, it was imperative to invent some story to account for my distress, and to my own surprise I told him, with many haltings and outbursts of grief, that my daughter, though unmarried, was, I feared, “in trouble”; and I had come to him for help. (This from Miss Prim who, a few months before, would not let this young man brush the lint from her gown!) Would he come to see the girl? And my tears and sighs broke forth afresh.
He looked grave and sympathetic, yet somewhat suspicious. As his questions became more searching, I was consumed with shame at the thought of how I should feel when he knew the truth. But I was in for it. I was a strange-acting old mother with my aborted giggles transformed to sobs and sighs. He grew more suspicious, saying, at length: “I think you will be more comfortable, and can talk more easily, if you remove your veil.”
Then I was scared. Perhaps he recognized me; perhaps he had all along; but now, disgusted at the lengths I had gone, was taking this way to punish me. Still, so long as he kept up the pretense, I would not throw up the game. But from that time on I was decidedly uncomfortable and every answer I made, was made with the double feeling: Perhaps he knows, and is getting even with me; and, If he doesn’t know, this is a tremendous success.
As his inquiries progressed, I was heartily ashamed at the answers and details I was forced to submit to keep in character. This continuing, I grew hysterical in earnest, acting more and more extravagantly, while his suspicions were more and more aroused, or his anger—I could not tell which. He grew very stern. Sitting back in his chair, he said decidedly, “I shall discuss this no further with you until you remove your veil.”