Papa's own girl: A novel

by Marie Stevens Howland

“Why, doctor! Have I not always been a good wife to you?” and the tears came to her eyes.

This was so unexpected, that the doctor felt inclined to laugh. He had been looking into vacancy as he talked, not dreaming that he was uttering words that could by any possibility be turned into any personal application. He had forgotten for a moment the fact that Mrs. Forest was like many women, who never fail to see a personal reflection in any comment upon woman’s culture or condition, or upon anything unusual in household management. Sometimes, for example, the bread bought at the baker’s would prove unusually chippy and innutritious, but never could the doctor remark the fact without hurting his wife’s feelings, as if she had personally made the bread and staked her reputation upon its giving perfect satisfaction. The doctor knew well this weakness, but had forgotten it for a moment. Had he been looking at her while he talked, he would have tempered his voice or words probably.

“A good wife, dear! of course you have,” he said, caressing her, “though I have not quite forgiven you for doubling my responsibilities.”

This was the doctor’s one marital teaze, which was so comically effective that he could not resist repeating it, occasionally, to hear her defend herself with the ingenuous concern of one-half conscious of being in the wrong, yet not knowing how. When this subject was exhausted, and Mrs. Forest’s temporary grief also, the subject of sending Clara to school was resumed. Mrs. Forest asked how it could be accomplished. “It will cost so much,” she said.

“Why, I am as rich as a Jew, Fannie,” he replied. “Old Kendrick actually paid me to-day all his long standing bill. You know I’ve just got him through a horrid case of peritonitis,” he added, with an inward chuckle, seeing that he had spoken ambiguously, and knowing that certain people are always anxious to know the name of a disease, which generally satisfies their curiosity in proportion to the incomprehensibility of the term—“a serious case of peritonitis, and feeling very comfortable to-day, but that his life was still in my hands, he had an access of gratitude, and promised to pay me every cent as soon as he got out of the house. I joked him and declared that my only sure way to get my fees was to dispatch him speedily, which I seriously thought I would do on reflection, as the settlement would be certain then. That joke did the business; for he made me ring for the servant, whom he ordered to bring him his writing materials, and then and there he made out a cheque for the amount.”

“But, dear, you should first have a nice whole suit of clothes yourself,” said Mrs. Forest.

“Oh no; I’ll get on well enough. I should feel too much like a swell in a whole new suit.” In truth, the good doctor had not experienced that luxury for years, and his appearance was not a great many removes from the condition known as “seedy;” but thanks to Mrs. Buzzell’s devotion, he was always kept supplied with elegant linen and hand-knit stockings for summer and winter, which he always wore long and gartered above the knee. In gloves he was somewhat extravagant, for he held that a physician’s hands should be preserved sensitive and fine to the touch; especially when he filled the office of surgeon as well as physician, as most country doctors do.

Dr. Forest’s medicaments in all ordinary cases were of the most simple kind, and his rival, Dr. Delano, and even old Dr. Gallup, were in much better repute at the druggists than he was, for his heart was always with the poor, and to these he generally furnished most of the medicines himself. He understood well the weakness of uncultivated people, shown nowhere more signally than in their faith in the potency of mysterious drugs; and when he called for “two glasses, two-thirds filled with fresh water,” he did it with an assumption of certainty that convinced his patient that life or death might be in those words, “two-thirds;” and when he emptied a harmless powder, perhaps of magnesia or carbonate of soda, into one and stirred it carefully, and then some other equally innocuous substance into the other glass, stirring each alternately, it was with an air that said plainly, “Beware how you trifle with the time and the manner of taking these!”

Though it can by no means be proved that the popular and almost adored Dr. Forest gave bread pills and innocuous medicines generally, yet it is exceedingly probable that he did, and his marvelous success goes far by way of corroboration. Apparently, he knew just what to do in all cases. Water he insisted upon so mercilessly that his patients became regularly habituated to taking a warm bath while they waited for his visit. To the questions of the better educated of his patients he used to say, “Lord bless you, how do I know? Do you think medicine a science whose every problem can be worked out by a formula like those of algebra or geometry? We knew precious little of the absolute value of medicines when all that is incontrovertible is admitted and all the rest rejected. One thing is certain, there is nowhere on this two-cent planet at present the conditions for perfect health, because there are nowhere the conditions for perfect happiness. Bless your heart! instead of being decrepit and played out at seventy or eighty years, we ought to be teaching boys how to turn double-back somersaults, or making sonnets to fresh and beautiful women who are great-grandmothers. Life, as we know it now, is but a miserable travesty of the real destiny of our race when we become integrally developed, and have brought the planet thoroughly under our united control. If a physician is up with the science of his time and a true man, about all he can say honestly is: keep your lungs, skin, liver, and kidneys in working order, lead an active, temperate life, possess your soul in quiet, and send for the doctor when you know you haven’t done these and want to shove the responsibility off upon him.”

He was severe to many of his patients, but so popular that he had to manœuvre shrewdly to give the young Dr. Delano a chance to establish himself. Among the poor, the old, and especially the forlorn, like poor Mrs. Buzzell, he made his longest visits; and where he knew that love and sympathy were “indicated,” he gave them freely, as in the case of this lonely woman. He often caressed her thin hand after counting her pulse, held his cool, soft, magnetic hand long upon her forehead; sometimes closing her eyes thus while he talked gayly, told her comical anecdotes in his life, which made her laugh, and so stimulated some laggard function into working order.