“Would you have a nigger see her naked?” he demanded of her fiercely. “Would you? Would you?”
Her head went back sharply at the roughness of his tone. In her eyes flashed that brilliant, burning look of mother love that submits to no dangers, no obstacles.
“I’d do anything to save her!” she cried.
“No, no, Mary,” Ewing pleaded, “we can’t do that! We can’t!”
She did not hear him. Brushing past him, she caught Dr. Bennett by the arm as he rose to his feet. “Get that doctor here quick!” she demanded of him. …
When Dr. Bennett telephoned him to come to Roy Ewing’s home as quickly as he could, Kenneth was somewhat puzzled. He went at once, deciding that one of the servants was sick. When told that it was Mary Ewing he was to treat, he could not conceal his amazement. He followed Roy Ewing and the doctor to her room, the while he was trying to make himself realize that he, Kenneth Harper, a Negro doctor, had been called to treat a white person—a white woman—in the South. Reaching the bedside, though, he put aside his bewilderment and began at once the diagnosis to discover what the trouble was. He listened without speaking to Dr. Bennett as the old man told him the symptoms Mary had shown and what he thought was the matter. Ewing was sent from the room. Kenneth rapidly examined the patient—and decided that she was having severe internal hæmorrhages. It looked like an acute and dangerous case.
Immediate operation seemed the only hope. And even that hope was a slim one. He informed Dr. Bennett of his diagnosis.
Ewing was summoned. Briefly Kenneth told him his theory of the trouble—that the only hope was immediate operation. Ewing faltered, hesitated, seemed about to refuse to allow it. At that moment a loud scream of pain was wrung from Mary’s lips. He winced as though he had been struck. He shrugged his shoulders in assent to the operation. …
Kenneth telephoned Mrs. Johnson, the nurse who had helped him before, to be ready to go with him for an operation in ten minutes. He drove rapidly home, secured his instruments, ether, sterilizer, gown and other equipment, bundled them into his car, called for Mrs. Johnson, explaining briefly to her the nature of the case as he drove as rapidly as he could to the Ewing home.
Mary was carried downstairs and placed on the dining-room table. Dr. Bennett agreed to give the anæsthesic. Kenneth went rapidly, yet surely, to work. In his element now, he forgot time, place, the unusual circumstances, and everything else. Swiftly he began the delicate and perilous task as soon as Dr. Bennett had sufficiently etherized the patient. Yet, even in the stress of the moment, he could not keep down the ironical thoughts that crept to his brain in spite of all efforts to bar them. The South’s a funny place, he mused. Must have been a mighty hard thing for old Bennett to have to admit that he, a Negro, knew more about operating in a case like this than he did himself. Roy Ewing must have had a bad half-hour deciding whether or not he’d let a Negro do the operation on his daughter. Hope nothing goes wrong—if it does, might as well pick out some other town to go to. Oh, well, won’t let that worry me. Have to make the best of it—save her if possible.