“Nonsense! You would have been just the same happy, cheering-up body that you are now.”
“Pooh! don’t be silly. I never did like flattery.”
“But, it isn’t flattery, Octave. You don’t know how much you have done for me—”
“I do, beg pardon; I have laughed at you and scolded you and tormented you into doing things till you hated me and everybody. But, my son, I did it for your good. That is what the grown-up people remark when they are especially disagreeable. And isn’t it splendid? That great doctor says he can cure Paula Pickel of traipsing around as a spook, at all hours of the night. He says he considers it only a nervous disorder, and that a prescription he gave me will help her. I told him about her while he was waiting to have Rosetta make him a cup of coffee, that other day, after—after he’d fixed you up. I thought I’d make a clean business of everything, and get everybody patched up who needed mending. One I forgot, though. That was Luke. He declares that he has something the matter with his arms which keeps him from doing certain things he ought to do. He—Lukey Tewky—called me aside and asked me: ‘What did he say about me?’ ‘Say about you! He did not even dream of your existence,’ said I. ‘Oh! do tell him about my arms, won’t you?’ and just then along came Abry-ham, and he caught hold of his son and shook him so that if anything ailed him it was shaken out.”
Melville laughed as gaily as his entertainer desired, at this picture of the farmer and his son. “Keep his spirits up,” the great surgeon had bidden her; “there is more healing in an unaffected laugh than in the whole materia medica.” Which statement the wise man may not have intended to be taken as literally as Octave took it. However, it was certain that the girl who had devoted herself so unselfishly to her crippled cousin did him more good than any other companion; and Melville would have had her in his sick-room all the time had he been allowed.
“Let’s talk about the discovery; that is part mine, you know, if the surgeon part does belong to Fritzy Nunky. Nobody but just Octave would ever have dared to go and see such a wonderful creature as my dear old professor has turned out to be. I don’t think I would dare do it again, after all Aunt Ruth’s remarks about the boldness of it. I suppose it was dreadful, but I am awfully glad I did it, all the same. Aren’t you?”
“Octave, it is almost too splendid to be true. Read this letter.” The sick boy drew out from under his pillow a brief note from the great scientist, whose every written word had so genuine a value. If brief, it was also enthusiastic. The writer had seen the famous specialist, Dr. Karl Ettmüller, had learned that not only was the operation eminently successful but that the anæsthetic of Melville’s discovery had been thoroughly and happily tested first in Melville’s own case. He wrote to congratulate: “He who has reduced the burden of physical agony is a philanthropist, and he who discovers one of God’s own cures is a genius. My lad, I hold you to be both; and when you shall be physically able, I ask you to come and take a position in my laboratory. It will give the old man new vigor to feel that such an one as you is beside him.”
“O Melville! Is it true? Is it really true? I shall have to pinch myself to make myself believe it.” Octave’s eyes were shining, and her cheeks glowed with delight.
“It is, it must be, true, Octave; since here it is in black and white. I have to take it out from under my pillow a dozen times a day to read it over, since I haven’t your felicitous method of convincing myself. Octave, I’d rather have that letter, that offer, than all the money in the world!”
“So would I!” cried the girl, responsively; then paused to purse up her merry lips in a doubtful fashion. “I don’t know about that, though, laddie; all the money in all the world would be a ‘purty consid’able of a pile,’ as Abry-ham would say. One could do a heap of good with all that money.”