"I think you are correct there; but still I feel that you might, without neglecting your studies, obtain a great deal more practical knowledge as you go along, and that it would be time excellently well spent; for the human body, and not that of the animal, is the one you will have to deal with, and all you can learn from the brute will be only an approach, require to be modified a great deal, and much of it won't apply in actual practice."
"I have not the least doubt, doctor, but the course you advise is the best, but in my circumstances I cannot avail myself of it.
"Perhaps it would come with a better grace from some one else, but the people in this town have expressed great attachment to me, and estimate me far above my deserts. Now, if I should go much with you to visit patients, bleed, and pull teeth, and reduce dislocations, as you would have me, every academy scholar who wanted a tooth pulled, or a gum-boil lanced, would be running to me, because they would think I should not hurt them so much as you.
"People who wanted a sore opened, others, who are personally attached to me, would come for slight complaints. Many persons who are ashamed to send for you, because they owe you, would think, 'Perhaps Mr. Richardson will do just as well; he's been studying a good while with the doctor.' And thus all my time would be frittered away, and nothing to show for it."
The doctor broke into a hearty laugh, and said, "I will yield the point, Mr. Richardson. I must acknowledge you have made out a strong case."
"That is the way I look at it. I am wheeling two wheelbarrows now,—studying medicine, and teaching,—and I don't mean to wheel three."
At the close of a long, hot day, the latter part of May, Clement Richardson and his brother, wearied with toil, were seated, one on the anvil, the other on the forge.
Somewhat more than a year had passed since their misfortune. During that period their condition had very much improved, owing to the following circumstance. Cast steel had been introduced, but only a few smiths in the country were able to use it.
More care and judgment were required in working it than the old material, and the aid of borax was necessary to weld it with iron. The old smiths around Richardson would have nothing to do with "the new-fangled stuff," stuck to blistered steel and a sand weld.