'Doc.' Gordon Read online

  CHAPTER III

  The next morning after breakfast, at which Mrs. Ewing did not appear,Doctor Gordon observed that she always took her rolls and coffee in bed.James followed Doctor Gordon into his office. Clemency, who had presidedat the coffee urn, had done so silently, and looked, so James thought,rather sulky, as if something had gone wrong. Directly James was in theoffice, the doctor's man, Aaron, appeared. He was a tall, lankJerseyman, incessantly chewing. His lean, yellow jaws appeared to haveacquired a permanent rotary motion, but he had keen eyes of intelligenceupon the doctor as he gave his orders.

  "Put in the team," said Gordon. "We are going to Haver's Corner. Old SamEdwards is pretty low, and I ought to have gone there yesterday, but Ididn't know whether that child with diphtheria at Tucker's Mill wouldlive the day out. Now he has seen the worst of it, thank the Lord! Butto-day I must go to Haver's. I want to make good time, for there'ssomething going on this afternoon, and I want an hour off if I can getit." Again the expression of simple jocularity was over the man's face,and James remembered what he had said the night before about againrunning a race with himself the next day.

  After Aaron had gone out Gordon turned to James. He pointed to his greatmedicine-case on the table. "You might see to it that the bottles areall filled," he said. "You will find the medicines yonder." He pointedto the shelf. "I have to speak to Clemency before I go."

  James obeyed. As he worked filling the bottles he heard dimly Gordon'svoice talking to Clemency on the other side of the wall. The girl seemedto be expostulating.

  When Doctor Gordon returned Aaron was at his heels with an immensebottle containing a small quantity of red fluid. "S'pose you'll wantthis filled?" he said to Gordon with a grin which only disturbed for asecond his rotary jaws.

  "Oh, yes, of course," replied Gordon, "we want the aqua."

  James stared at him as he poured a little red-colored liquid from one ofthe bottles on the shelves into the big one. "Now fill it up from thepump, and put it in the buggy; be sure the cork is in tight," he said toAaron.

  Gordon looked laughingly at James when the man had gone. "I infer thatyou are wondering what 'aqua' may be," he said.

  "I was brought up to think it was water," said James.

  "So it is, water pure and simple, with a little coloring matter thrownin. Bless you, boy, the people around here want their medicines by thequart, and if they had them by the quart, good-by to the doctor's job,and ho for the undertaker! So the doctor is obliged to impose upon thecredulity of the avariciously innocent, and dilute the medicine. Blessyou, I have patients who would accuse me of cheating if I prescribedless than a cupful of medicine at a time. They have to be humored. Afterall, they are a harmless, good lot, but stiffened with hereditary ideas,worse than by rheumatism. If I should give a few drops in half a glassof water, and order a teaspoonful at a time, I should fly in the face ofsomething which no mortal man can conquer, sheer heredity. Thegrandfathers and great-grandfathers of these people took their physic ondraft, the children must do likewise. Sometimes I even think themedicine would lose its effect if taken in any other way. Nobody canestimate the power of a fixed idea upon the body. All the same, it is aconfounded nuisance carrying around the aqua. I will confess, although Isee the necessity of yielding, that I have less patience with men'sstiff-necked stupidity than I have with their sins."

  James drove all the morning with Doctor Gordon about the New Jerseycountry. It was a moist, damp day, such as sometimes comes even inwinter. It was a dog day with an atmosphere slightly cooler than that ofmidsummer. Overcoats were oppressive, the horses steamed. The roads weredeep with red mud, which clogged the wheels and made the hoofs of thehorses heavy. "It's a damned soil," said Doctor Gordon. This morningafter appearing somewhat saturnine at breakfast, he was again in hisunnatural, rollicking mood. He hailed everybody whom he met. He jokedwith the patients and their relatives in the farmhouses, approachedthrough cart-tracks of mire, and fluttered about by chickens, quackinggeese, and dead leaves. Now and then, stately ranks of turkeys chargedin line of battle upon the muddy buggy, and the team, being used to it,stood their ground, and snorted contemptuously. The country people wereeither saturnine with an odd shyness, which had something almost hostilein it, or they were effusively hospitable, forcing apple-jack upon thetwo doctors. James was much struck by the curious unconcern shown by therelatives of the patients, and even by the patients themselves. In onlyone case, and that of a child suffering from a bad case of measles, wasmuch interest evinced. The majority of the patients were the very oldand middle-aged, and they discussed, and heard discussed, their symptomswith much the same attitude as they might have discussed the mechanismof a wooden doll. If any emotion was shown it was that of a singularinverted pride. "I had a terrible night, doctor," said one old woman,and a smirk of self-conceit was over her ancient face. "Yes, mother_did_ have an awful night," said her married daughter with a triumphantexpression. Even the children clustering about the doctor lookedunconsciously proud because their old grandmother had had an awfulnight. The call of the two doctors at the house was positivelyhilarious. Quantities of old apple-jack were forced upon them. The oldwoman in the adjoining bedroom, although she was evidently suffering,kept calling out a feeble joke in her cackling old voice.

  "Those people seem positively elated because that old soul is sick,"said James when he and the doctor were again in the buggy.

  "They are," said Doctor Gordon, "even the old woman herself, who knowswell enough that she has not long to live. Did you ever think that thedesire of distinction was one of the most, perhaps the most, intensepurely spiritual emotion of the human soul? Look at the way these peoplelive here, grubbing away at the soil like ants. The most of them have intheir lives just three ways of attracting notice, the momentaryconsideration of their kind: birth, marriage, sickness and death. Withthe first they are hardly actively concerned, even with the second manyhave nothing to do. There are more women than men as usual, and althoughthe women want to marry, all the men do not. There remains only sicknessand death for a stand-by, so to speak. If one of them is really sick anddies, the people are aroused to take notice. The sick person and thecorpse have a certain state and dignity which they have never attainedbefore. Why, bless you, man, I have one patient, a middle-aged woman,who has been laid up for years with rheumatism, and she is fairlyvainglorious, and so is her mother. She brags of her invalid daughter.If she had been merely an old maid on her hands, she would have beenashamed of her, and the woman herself would have been sour anddiscontented. But she has fairly married rheumatism. It has been to heras a husband and children. I tell you, young man, one has to have hislittle footstool of elevation among his fellows, even if it is a mightyqueer one, or he loses his self-respect, and self-respect is the bestjewel we have."

  They were now out in the road again, the team plodding heavily throughthe red shale. "It's a damned soil," said the doctor for the secondtime. He looked down at the young man beside him, and James again feltthat resentful sense of youth and inexperience. "I don't know how you'vebeen brought up," said the elder man. "I don't want to infuse hereticnotions into your innocent mind."

  James straightened himself. He tried to give the other man a knowinglook. "I have been about a good deal," he said. "You need not be afraidof corrupting _me_."

  Doctor Gordon laughed. "Well, I shall not try," he said. "At least, Ishall not mean to corrupt you. I am a pessimist, but you are so youngthat you ought not to be influenced by that. Lord, only think what maybe before you. You don't know. I am so far along that I know as far as Iam concerned. I did not know but you had been brought up to think thatwhatever the Lord made was good, and that in saying that this red, glueyNew Jersey soil was darned bad, I was swearing the worst way. I don'twant to have millstones and that sort of thing about my neck. I wasquite up in the Scriptures at one time."

  "You need not be afraid," said James with dignity; "I think the soildarned bad myself." He hesitated a little over the darned, but once itwas out, he felt proud of it.
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  "Yes, it is," said Doctor Gordon, "and if the Lord made it, he did notaltogether succeed, and I see no earthly way of tracing the New Jerseysoil back to original sin and the Garden of Eden."

  "That's so," said James.

  Doctor Gordon's face grew sober, his jocular mood for the time hadvanished. He was his true self. "Did it ever occur to you that diseasewas the devil?" he asked abruptly. "That is, that all these infernalmicrobes that burrow in the human system to its disease and death, werehis veritable imps at work?"

  James shook his head, and looked curiously at his companion's face withits gloomy corrugations.

  "Well, it has to me," said the doctor, "and let me ask you one thing.You have been brought up to believe that the devil's particularresidence was hell, haven't you?"

  James replied in a bewildered fashion that he had.

  "Well," said Doctor Gordon, "if the devil lives here, as he must live,when there's such failures in the way of soil, and such climates, andsuch fiendish diseases, and crimes, why, this is hell."

  James stared at him.

  Doctor Gordon nodded half-gloomily, half-whimsically. "It's so," hesaid. "We call it earth; but it's hell."

  James said nothing. The doctor's gloomy theology was too much for him.Besides, he was not quite sure that the elder man was not chaffing him.

  "Well," said Doctor Gordon presently, "hell it is, but there arecompensations, such as apple-jack, and now and then there's somethingdoing that amuses one even here. I am going to take you to somethingthat enlivens hell this afternoon, if somebody doesn't send a call. I amtrying to get my work done this morning, the worst of it, so as to havean hour this afternoon."

  The two returned a little after twelve, and found luncheon waiting forthem. Mrs. Ewing took her place at the table, and James thought that shedid not look quite so ill as she had done the evening before. She talkedmore, and ate with some appetite. Doctor Gordon's face lightened, notwith the false gayety which James had seen, but he really looked quitehappy, and spoke affectionately to his sister.

  "What do you think, Tom," said she, "has come over Clemency? I don'tknow when there has been a morning that she has not gone for a tramp,rain or shine, but she has not stirred out to-day. She says she feelsquite well, but I don't know."

  "Oh, Clemency is all right," said Doctor Gordon, but his face darkenedagain. As for Clemency, she bent over her plate and looked sulkier thanever. She fairly pouted.

  "She can go out this afternoon," said Mrs. Ewing. "It looks as if itwere going to clear off."

  "No, I don't want to go," said Clemency. "I am all out of the humor ofit." She spoke with an air of animosity, as if somebody were to blame,but when she saw Mrs. Ewing's anxious eyes she smiled. "I would muchprefer staying with you, dear," she said, "and finish Annie's Christmaspresent." She spoke with such an affectionate air, that James lookedadmiringly at her. She seemed a fellow-worshipper. He thought that he,too, would much prefer staying with Mrs. Ewing than going with DoctorGordon on the mysterious outing which he had planned.

  However, directly after luncheon Gordon led James out into the stableand called Aaron. "Are they ready, Aaron?" inquired the doctor.

  Aaron grinned, opened a rude closet, and produced a number of objects,which James recognized at once as dummy pigeons. So Doctor Gordon was totake him to a pigeon-shooting match. James felt a little disgusted. Hehad, in fact, taken part in that sport with considerable gusto himself,but, just now, he being fairly launched, as it were, upon the seriousthings of life, took it somewhat in dudgeon that Doctor Gordon shouldthink to amuse him with such frivolities. But to his amazement theelder man's face was all a-quiver with mirth and fairly eager. "Show thepigeons to Doctor Elliot, Aaron," said Doctor Gordon. James took one ofthe rude disks called pigeons from the hand of Aaron with indifference,then he started and stared at Doctor Gordon, who laughed like a boy,fairly doubling himself with merriment. Aaron did not laugh, he chewedon, but his eyes danced.

  "Why, they are--" stammered James.

  "Just so, young man," replied Doctor Gordon. "They are wood. Aaron madethem on a lathe, and not a soul can tell them from the clay pigeonsunless they handle them. Now you are going to see some fun. Jim Goodman,who is the meanest skunk in town, has cheated every mother's son of usfirst and last, and this afternoon he is going to shoot against AlbertDodd, and he's going to get his finish! Dodd knows about it. He'll haveclay pigeons all right. Goodman has put up quite a sum of money, and hestands fair to lose for once in his life."

  "Come on, Aaron, put the bay mare in the buggy. We'll drive down to thefield. We haven't got much time to spare."

  Aaron backed the mare out of her stall and hitched her to themud-bespattered buggy, and the two men drove off with the wooden pigeonsunder the seat. They had not far to go, to a large field intersectedwith various footpaths and with, a large bare space, which evidentlyserved as a football gridiron. "This field is used like town property,"explained the doctor, "but the funny part of it is, it belongs to an oldwoman who is, perhaps, the richest person in Alton, and asks such aprice for the land that nobody can buy it, and it has never occurred toher to keep off trespassers. So everybody trespasses, and she pays thetaxes, and we are all satisfied, especially as there are plenty ofbetter building sites in Alton to be bought for less money. That oldwoman bites her nose off every day, and never knows it."

  On this barren expanse, intersected with the narrow footpaths, coveredbetween with the no color of last year's dry weeds and grass, wereassembled some half dozen men and boys. They rushed up as the doctor'sbuggy came alongside. "Got 'em?" they cried eagerly. Doctor Gordonfumbled under the seat and drew out the batch of wooden pigeons, whichone young fellow, who seemed to be master of ceremonies, grasped andrushed off with to the queer-looking machine erected in the centre ofthe football clearing, for the purpose of making them take wing. Theothers went with him. Doctor Gordon got out of his buggy, accompanied byJames, and they, too, joined the little group. "Got the others?" askedGordon in a half whisper.

  "Yes, you bet. We've got the others all right," said the young fellow,and everybody laughed.

  Men and boys began to gather until the field was half filled with them.They all wore grinning countenances. "For Heaven's sake, boys, don't actas if it were so awful funny, or you'll spoil the whole thing," said theyoung fellow who had come for the pigeons.

  Only one face was entirely sober, even severe, as with resolve, and thatwas the face of a small, mean-looking man between forty and fifty. Hecarried a gun, and looked at once important and greedy. "That's JimGoodman," whispered Doctor Gordon to James, "and he's a crack shot, too.Albert isn't as sure, though he's pretty good, too."

  James began to catch the spirit of it himself. He felt at once disgustedand uneasy about the doctor, but as for himself he was only a youngman, after all, and sport was still sweet to his soul. He shouted withthe rest when the first pigeon was launched into the air, and AlbertDodd, a tall, serious young man, fired. He hit the bird, which at onceflew into fragments, as a clay pigeon properly should.

  Georgie K. came up and joined them. He was evidently not in the secret,for he looked intensely puzzled when Jim Goodman, who had next shot, hithis bird fairly, but it only hopped about and descended unbroken. "Whatthe deuce!" he said.

  "Hush up, Georgie K.," said Doctor Gordon. The other man turned andlooked at him keenly, but the doctor's imperturbable, smiling face wason the sport. Georgie K.'s great pink face grew grave. Every time AlbertDodd fired the pigeons dropped in pieces, every time Jim Goodman firedthey hopped as if they were alive. Jim Goodman swore audibly. He lookedto his cartridges. The whole field was in an uproar of mirth. Thegunshots were hardly audible for the yells and wild halloos ofmerriment. The match at last was finished. Jim Goodman's last pigeonhopped, and he was upon it in a rage. He took it up and examined it. Itwas riddled with shot. He felt it, weighed it. Then his face grewfairly black. From being only mean, he looked murderous. He was losingmoney, and money was the closest thing to his soul. He looked around
atthe yelling throng, one man at bay, and he achieved a certain dignity,even in the midst of absurdity.

  "This darned pigeon is wood," said he. "They are all wood, all I haveshot. This is a put-up job! It ain't fair." He turned to the youngfellow who had taken the pigeons, and who acted as referee.

  "See here, John," he said, "you ain't going to see me done this way, beyou? You know it ain't a fair deal. Albert Dodd's shot clay pigeons, andI've shot wood. It ain't fair."

  "No, it ain't fair," admitted the young fellow reluctantly, with a sideglance at Doctor Gordon. Gordon made a movement, but Georgie K. wasahead of him. James saw a roll of bills pass from his hands to JimGoodman's. Gordon came up to Georgie K.

  "See here!" he said.

  "Well," replied Georgie K., without turning his head.

  "Georgie K."

  "I can't stop. Excuse me, Doc." Georgie K. jumped into a light wagon onthat side of the field, and was gone with a swift bounce over the hollowwhich separated it from the road. Doctor Gordon hurried back to his ownbuggy, with James following, got in and took the road after Georgie K."He mustn't pay that money," said Gordon. James said nothing.

  "I never thought of such a thing as that," said Doctor Gordon, drivingfuriously, but they did not catch up with Georgie K. until they reachedthe Evarts House, and he was out of his wagon.

  Doctor Gordon approached him, pocketbook in hand. "See here, GeorgieK.," he said, "I owe you a hundred."

  "Owe me nothing," said Georgie K. It had seemed impossible for his greatpink face to look angry and contemptuous, but it did. "I don't set upfor much," said he, "but I must say I like a square deal."

  "Good Lord! so do I," said Gordon. "Here, take this money. I had Aaronmake those darned wooden pigeons. Jim Goodman has skinned enough youngchaps here to deserve the taste of a skin himself."

  "He ain't skinned you."

  "Hasn't he? He owes me for two wives' last sicknesses, to say nothingof himself and children, and he's living with his third, and I shallhave to doctor her for nothing or let her die. But that wasn't what Idid it for."

  Georgie K. turned upon him. "What on earth did you do it for, Doc?" saidhe.

  "Because I felt the way you have felt yourself."

  "When?"

  "When the woman that made those wax-flowers, and loved that littlestuffed bird in there, died."

  Georgie K.'s face paled. "What's the matter, Doc?"

  "Nothing, I tell you."

  "What?"

  "Nothing. Who said there was anything? I had to have my little joke. Itell you, Georgie K., I've _got_ to have my little joke, just as I'vegot to have my game of euchre with you and my glass of apple-jack; a mancan't be driven too far. I meant to make it right with him. He's a meanlittle cuss, but I am not mean. I intended to spend a hundred on myjoke, and you got ahead of me. For God's sake, take the money, GeorgieK."

  Georgie K., still with a white, shocked, inquiring face, extended hishand and took the roll of bills which the doctor gave him.

  "Come in and take something," said he, and Doctor Gordon and Jamesaccepted. They went again into the state parlor on whose shelf were thewax-flowers and the stuffed canary, and they partook of apple-jack.

  Then Doctor Gordon and James took leave. Georgie K. gave Gordon a heartyshake of the hand when he got into the buggy. Gordon looked at Jamesagain with his gloomy face, as he took up the lines. "Failed in the raceagain," he said. "Now we've got to hustle, for I have eight calls tomake before dinner, and it's late. I ought to change horses, but thereisn't time."