CHAPTER XVI
JUDICIOUS HARDENING
In the softened light of a richly furnished office two physicians were seated. It was the elder who spoke. Drawn and sad was his cleanly featured, tense face; his clear skin and slightly whitened, dark hair belied his nearly seventy years. He was the anxious, unhappy father of a sick, unhappy daughter, whom the nurse was preparing in an adjoining room for examination by Dr. Franklin, the younger physician. "I mean no discourtesy, Doctor, when I say that I don't believe any one understands my girl's case. Her brother and sister are healthy youngsters and have always been so. I may have taken a few drinks too many now and then, but few men of my age can stand more night-work or do more practice than I can, and I've about rounded my three-score and ten. Wanda was a perfect child. She is my oldest. Her mother did pet and spoil her, always humored her from the first, but she was a cheerful, bright little thing. She finished high school at fifteen and did a good year's study at Monticello. All her trouble seemed to start that spring when she was vaccinated. She had never had worse than the measles before. She didn't seem to know how to take sickness, though the Lord knows she's had plenty of chances to learn since her sore arm; and the school-doctor had to lance a small place, and this kept her away from Commencement where they had some part for her to do. She didn't get well in time to spend the month in Michigan with her room- mate, and she always said that if she could have had this trip she would never have been so bad. It was a mighty hard summer with me, too, that year, and probably I didn't notice her enough—anyway she's been a half-invalid these eighteen years. It's pain and tenderness in this nerve and then in that one, and she hasn't walked a whole mile in fifteen years because of her sciatica. I have sent her to Hot Springs, one summer she spent at Saratoga, and she has taken two courses of mud-baths. When she was twenty-six, she lived for four months in Dr. Moore's home. He and I were college-mates and he had been mighty good in treating rheumatic troubles. After awhile he decided it was her diet and she lived a whole year in B—- Sanitarium and she gained weight too, there, and hasn't eaten any meat to speak of nor drunk any coffee since. She often complains of her eyes but the specialists say they are all right, that that isn't the trouble. Two of the best surgeons in our part of the country have refused to operate on her even when I begged one of them to open her and see if he couldn't find out what was the matter. Three of her doctors have said it was her nerves, but I don't think any of them know. You know I don't mean to say anything that will reflect on your specialty, but you never did see a case of only nerves put a healthy young girl in bed and keep her there suffering so that I've had to give her aspirin a hundred times and even morphin by hypodermic to get her quiet, and off and on for five years she's had ten, and sometimes fifteen grains of veronal at midnight, nights when she couldn't get to sleep. If it's only nerves, then I've got a mighty heap to learn about nerves. I think in forty- five years practicing medicine a man ought to know enough about them to recognize them in his own family. But something's got to be done. Wanda's making a hospital of our home. We daren't slam a door, or her sister mustn't play the piano but her headaches start; and if Rosie boils turnips or even brings an onion into the house, it goes to Wanda's stomach and it takes a hypodermic to quiet her vomiting and a week to get over the trouble.
"That child of mine is just like a different creature from the fine little girl she was at twelve when my buggy turned over one night and broke my leg. Why, she nursed me better than her mother. She just couldn't do enough for me. That little thing would come down just as quiet as she could—sometimes every night—to see that that leg was all right and hadn't got twisted; while now she expects attention from everybody in the house and from some of the neighbors. She will even send for Rosie just when she is trying to get dinner started and keep her a half-hour telling just what she wants and how it's got to be fixed, then more often she'll just nibble at it just enough to spoil it for everybody else, after Rosie's spent an hour getting it ready for her. Tonics don't help her a bit. I've given her iron, arsenic and strychnin enough to cure a dozen weak women. She's always too weak to exercise, lies in bed two days out of three, reads and sometimes writes a letter or two. But before Christmas comes (you know she is mighty cunning with her fingers; she can sew and embroider and make all sorts of pretty, womanish things) she works so hard making presents that she's just clear done out for the next two months and won't leave her room for weeks. That's about all she does from one year's end to another, but complain of her sickness, and of late years criticize the rest of us and dictate to the whole household what they must do for themselves, and just out-and-out demand what she wants them to do for her. She really treats her stepmother like a dog, and often she is so disrespectful to me that I certainly would thrash her if she wasn't so sick. She was a fine child but her suffering has wrecked her disposition. She and the rest of us would be better off if she'd die. You see, Doctor, I haven't much faith left, but she's been bent so long a time on coming to you, and is willing to spend the little money her mother left her, to have her own way. Now, I am doctor enough to stand by you in what you decide if you say you can cure her, and if she gets well, I'll pay every cent of the bill, but if she don't, the Lord will just have to help us all, though I suppose I'll have to take care of her as long as she lives for she won't have a cent after she gets through with this."
Wanda Fairchild lay expectant on the examination table, pale, almost wan; her blue eyes, fair skin and even her attractive, curling, blonde hair seemed lusterless, save when her face lighted with momentary anticipation at some sound suggesting Dr. Franklin's coming. Much indeed of her feeling life had grown false through the blighting touch of her useless years of useless sickness. But genuine was her greeting. "Oh, Doctor, I am so glad to be here! You remember Mrs. Melton. You cured her and she has been well ever since, and for over two years I've been begging papa to bring me here, but he hasn't any hope. He's tried so hard and spent so much. Now you've got to get me well. They all say this is my last chance. I certainly can't endure these awful pains much longer. I know they're going to drive me crazy some day if something isn't done to stop them. Just look at my arms. That's where I bit them last night to keep from screaming out in the sleeper, for I wouldn't take any medicine. I wanted you to see me without any of that awful stuff to make me different than I truly am. You will surely cure me, won't you, Doctor, so I can go back home soon, as strong as Mrs. Melton is, and live like other girls, and have company and go to parties and dance and take auto-rides and have a good time before I get too old—or die? Oh, Doctor, you don't know what a horrible life I live! Every day is just torture. I suppose they do as well as they know at home, but not one of them, not even papa, has any conception of how I suffer or they would show more consideration. It is terrible enough to be sick when you are understood and when everybody is doing the right thing to help you. I know my trip has made me worse, for my spine is throbbing now like a raw nerve. It would be a relief if some one would put burning coals on my back. You know there's nothing worse than nerve-pains."
Dr. Franklin smiled quietly. How often he had heard poor sufferers hyperbolize their suffering! How keenly he could see the distinction between the real and the false in illness! How certainly he knew that such exaggerated rantings and wailings stood for illness of mind or soul, but not of body! The physical examination, nevertheless, was extremely thorough. Nothing can be guessed at in the intricate war with disease.
"Yes, I was happy as a child. Mother understood me; no one else ever has. She knew when I needed petting. I did well at school and really loved Myrtle Covington, my room-mate at the Sem. Just think, she married—married a poor preacher, but I know she is happy, for she is well and has a home of her own and three children. I don't see how they make ends meet on eighteen-hundred and no parsonage. You know we had a smallpox scare at the Sem. that spring and all had to be vaccinated. I scratched mine, or something, and for weeks nearly died of blood-poisoning. That is where my neuritis started. They had to lance my arm to save my life, and when you examined me I had to grit my teeth to keep from screaming out when you took hold of that cut place. You believe I am brave, don't you, Doctor? It hurts there yet, but I didn't want to disturb you in the examination. Do you think there is any chance for me, Doctor?"
At this point the physician nodded to the nurse, who left the room.
"And what else happened that summer?" he asked her kindly.
"Well, I was in bed over three months with my vaccination and my lanced arm, and I had a special nurse, and couldn't eat any solid food for days. They never would tell me how high my fever was; they were afraid of frightening me, but I wouldn't have cared. I used to wish I could die."