A metal box caught her eye. She opened it gingerly, lest it contain other unpleasant fauna. A dated label was lettered: “Genuine Kine-Pox Matter; J. Vought, M.D.” She regarded it with awe. Tip Crego’s aunt knew a lady who, after being vaccinated, grew horns and gave milk. Perhaps, though, that was from an overdose. If Dr. Amlie believed in it, surely it was all right. It must be terrible to be like Sarah Dorch. Deacon Dillard said it was a judgment on her for the levity of her conduct.
Books! They were all about her in seductive array, such books as never before had she known of; strange, enticing titles, suggestive of unknown regions to be explored. What a feast for the inquiring mind! Where should she begin?
There was Hooper’s Medical Lexicon, Whytt on the Nerves (her mother had nerves; maybe she could find out something helpful about them), Blackall on Dropsy, Gregory’s Physic, with an impressive London mark on it, Hamilton’s Diseases of Women and Children, Burns on Abortion, Dorsey’s Surgery (she peeked into that and set it aside for its startling pictures), Huxham on Fevers, Bayes on the Bones (who cared about bones!), Vought’s Treatise on Bowel Complaints in manuscript (she could tell Dr. Vought something about those), Denman’s Midwifery, Cheyne on the English Malady (What on earth was the English malady? She had heard one of the ladies say something at a sewing bee about the French malady and all the rest had hushed her up), Conversations on Chemistry, a Medical Repository in twenty-two dull-appearing volumes, a file of Medical Magazine, and many, many others. What a wondrously learned man Dr. Horace Amlie must be!
Dinty made a selection on a purely pictorial basis and settled down to enjoy herself. Soon her perky little nose was hovering close above the page. Her blue eyes rounded with wonder. Her mind moved, entranced, in alien and fascinating realms. She was deaf to approaching footsteps.
Horace Amlie advanced quietly to the window and leaned his arms on the sill.
“Improving the mind?” he inquired.
“Oh!” said Dinty. “You’re not cross with me, are you, for coming in while you were away?” she asked politely.
“No.” Such had been the loneliness of his professional quarters in the week since he had opened office that he was glad to see anybody.
Encouraged, she said, “This is a funny book. What’s abortion?”
He craned his neck. Burns on Abortion—the extremely explicit Burns! “That book is not for little girls,” he said hastily.
“I don’t see why not. I like the pictures. Won’t you tell me what abortion means?”
“It’s a—a physical condition.”
“Do ladies have it?”
“Yes. No. Sometimes.”
“All the pictures are ladies’ pictures.” She spread the volume open to a full-page illustration. “That’s a lady’s inside, isn’t it?”
“Yes. Let me have the …”
“Wait.” She whisked Burns beyond the reach of his intruding arm. “Are everybody’s insides like that?”
“Not at all.”
“Are yours?”
“No!”
“I don’t see why you should roar when I only want to know things,” protested Dinty. “Why do people put things in books if they don’t want other people to know them? I think it’s very unfair. Will I be like that when I grow up?”
Dr. Amlie uttered a faint groan, which failed to chill his visitor’s ardor of research. She set her finger upon the drawing.
“Her stomach looks like a miller’s grist bag. Why does it look that way?”
“Never mind.”
“There’s a doll curled up in the bag. That’s funny, too.”
“Araminta, close that book at once,” he commanded.
She sighed. “I will if you bid me to,” said she meekly. “But I do think you might tell me. How did the doll get inside the lady?”
Dr. Amlie mounted the steps, let himself in through the door, laid violent hands upon Burns and relegated him and his too revelatory illustrations to a far corner of the upper shelf.
“These are my office hours,” he said. “Go home.”
Dinty’s eyes became as those of the stricken doe. “Aren’t you going to cure me?” she quavered.
“What’s the matter with you?”
“I think it’s prob’ly hydrophobia. I can bark like a dog.”
“Well, don’t,” said he unsympathetically.
“And look at my hands.”
She spread them, palms up. The flesh was wealed and blistered; in one spot it was laid open.
“Digging again?” he asked. He had heard of that escapade.
“No. My teacher spatted me. That isn’t the only place he tried to spat me.” She rubbed the other place. “Right before the whole school,” she said in a voice dolorous and shamed. She cheered up suddenly. “He didn’t spat me but twice there. I bit him.”
From the contents of several sweetly odorous jars Dr. Amlie compounded an ointment over which her nostrils expanded appreciatively.
“Mm—nmm,” she murmured.
“What devilment were you up to?” he inquired, applying the salve.
“I wrote a poem instead of my lesson.” She recited it. “It was a silly lesson. Is your income one thousand, eight hundred and thirty-six dollars a year?”
“It is not,” he replied, reflecting with a qualm that it was not likely to be, within reckonable time.
“If it was, would you spend three dollars and forty-nine cents of it per day?”
“Now look you, young lady,” said Horace Amlie. “I am not here to do your sums for you.”
Dinty’s lips quivered. She raised piteous eyes to heaven. Her face became a picture of woe.
“You’re mean to me,” she accused, a heartbreak in every soft syllable.
It was just a little overdone. Yet, so skillful was the pathos that, in spite of his suspicions, Horace was moved. Those forlorn, upturned eyes of childhood; if he rejected her, they mutely asked, to whom, in a cruel world, could she turn for aid and comfort?
“If your problems are too much for you,” he began uncertainly, “surely your parents …”
“No,” said she mournfully. “Ma says figures make her head ache. Pa only teases. You could help me with my sums and I could redd up your room. I’d admire to be your little housewife. I’m a clever good housewife. Even Ma will tell you that. I can bake and fry and air the linen and sew a seam and put up fruits and everything.”
“I daresay. But Mrs. Harte does well enough by me.”
Dinty cocked a critical head. “Pooh! There’s dust on the top of the shelf where I found the book. The framed motto on the wall doesn’t hang straight. One of the buttons on your broadcloth coat dingle-dangles. And look up there in the corner. A mud-dobber’s nest! I’d be ashamed!” She folded her hands virtuously. “How much is your bill, Dr. Amlie? I haven’t got much.”
“Nothing. That’s for friendship.”
“Am I truly your friend?” she crowed. “Then I’ll come to see you every day if you’ll let me. I’d admire to know all about the medicines in the bottles. Will you tell me about them?”
Horace conned his array of cures, liquid, powder, pill and wafer, with affection. Many of them he had garnered and prepared himself, for he was an enthusiastic botanist. Here, bottled, boxed and classified, were the concentrated essences of healing. Unimpeachable authority, crystallized in the books overhead, vouched for their virtues. Practically every known ailment was matched by its cure. For fevers there were bloodroot, spikenard, dragonsfoot, mallow and maidenhair. Rhubarb would take care of all but the “deep” rheumatism; the more potent pokeberry tincture in brandy was cautiously recommended for that. Slippery elm corrected constipation and spleenroot, incontinence. Alkanoke was specific in yellow jaundice; white birthroot in hysterics. Balmwort could be relied upon to comfort the distended stomach. Elivir powder miraculously eased catarrh internally and the itch externally. And, if all else failed, there was that sterling panacea, cow parsnip, to fall back upon in any crisis resisting less formidable and compre
hensive remedies.
His visitor was spelling out the label on a jar, Triosteum perfoli.
“What do you give this for?” she asked.
“That’s feverwort. It cools and dispels fevers.”
“I know something about feverwort you don’t know. You can dry the berries and roast them and they’re as good as coffee, almost.” She examined a smaller vial. “What’s this?”
“Henbane.”
“Isn’t it poisonous?”
“Not when employed with discretion. It stimulates the liver.”
She explored further. “What’s tafsilago powder for?”
“Scurvy and humors of the blood.”
“Does everything cure something?”
“Yes.” It was a broad statement, but it rested on the best authority. If the learned writers of all those books did not know, then there was no wisdom in the world.
“Isn’t that wonderful!” She meditated. “Then why do people die?” she propounded.
Dr. Amlie frowned. Contemplating that formidable battery of scientifically warranted medicaments, he had been hard beset to explain to himself how there could be disease, let alone death, left in a world so impregnably defended.
“You are too young to understand.”
“No, I’m not,” she denied brightly. “I know. It’s because they don’t come to you to be cured.”
Reluctant to discourage so flattering a theory, Dr. Amlie endeavored to look sagacious.
“Do other doctors know about these?” She waved her hand toward the embottled pharmacopoeia.
“Yes. Certainly.”
“But not as much as you do.”
“Some know more,” said he modestly.
She shook her head. “I’ll never believe that.” She pounced upon his trashbasket and brought forth a fur. “What’s this?”
“Nothing,” said Horace shortly.
It was, in fact, a fee, the only one he had taken in two days. Four applicants from the Pinch had availed themselves of his offer of free vaccination, one of whom, an Indian, had surprisingly proved to be a pay patient. After the inoculation he had blown gently upon the scarified spot, fumbled under his jacket, laid upon the practitioner’s desk a well-cured raccoon skin and stalked out with no comment.
“Willful waste makes woeful want,” said Dinty through the pursed lips of virtuous disapproval. “You shouldn’t throw things away.”
“What use is a coonskin to me in June?”
She examined it critically. “It’s a summer hide, of course. But T. Lay will buy it. T. Lay buys everything. Haven’t you ever read his sign?”
Professional pride bristled. “Am I to huckster whatever my patients may choose to bring me in the way of rubbish?” he demanded.
“Will you let me do it?”
Receiving a grudging assent she departed with the pelt. There was an air of triumph about her, and a trove tight-clutched in the pudgy hand when she came back. She set forth the transaction.
“I said two shillings and he said sixpence. I said eighteen cents and he said eight. I said fifteen cents and not a cent less and he said ten cents and not a cent more, you little harpy. So then, of course, I knew I could get a shilling, and here it is. What will you do with it?”
“What would you advise?” asked Horace gravely.
“Buy a pretty for Miss Agatha Levering.”
“Why should I do that?” he inquired, successfully repressing a gulp. (This child knew too much!)
“Aren’t you sparking her? You took her to the Sacred Choral.”
“Don’t be so inquisitive,” returned Horace.
“Nineteen is dismal old,” she observed reflectively.
“You haven’t to worry for some years yet,” said he.
“I wasn’t thinking of myself.” As he did not fill the pause which followed by asking her of whom she was thinking, she continued, “I hope I shall be married long before then. Nineteen!” She shook her head. “But, then, you’re very old, yourself. Has she promised to work you a sampler yet?”
“Who?”
“Miss Agatha.”
“No. Why should she?”
“I got a prize once for working a sampler.” She slanted her eyes around to take in Dr. Amlie, but he was not looking at her. “Shall I work you one?” she asked. “A pretty one. To hang in the bare spot.” Dinty indicated the far wall whence the mud-wasp had been evicted.
“What sentiment would you use?” inquired Horace grimly. “ ‘Multiplication is vexation’?”
Dinty wriggled. “Now you’re being mean to me,” said she, sorrowfully. “Never mind. I’d like to do a sampler for you. I’ve got my wool all spooled for it. Do you want to know what my motto for the sampler is?”
“Yes, I’d like to very much.”
“It’s all printed out on your certificate. Such lovely letters! I copied it. You don’t mind, do you?”
“Where did you see it?”
“In your drawer, when I was setting it to rights.” She produced a square of paper from her school bag and read from it:
“ ‘I, Horace Amlie, M.D., do solemnly declare that I will honestly, virtuously, and chastely conduct myself in the practice of physic and surgery, with the privilege of exercising which profession I am now invested; and that I will, with fidelity and honor, do everything in my power for the sick committed to my care.’ ”
“That would make a long sampler,” said he.
“Not too long. I can do fine lettering. I think the sentiment is noble,” she declared warmly. “How do you ever think of such elegant words?”
“God bless the child! I didn’t invent it,” said he.
“Didn’t you?” said she, disappointed. “It says ‘I, Horace Amlie, M.D.’ ”
“It’s the New York State Board medical oath,” he explained.
“Oh! Don’t you think it would look lovely in purple and green worsted? With a border of roses,” she added, warming to her artistic forecast.
“Very pretty,” agreed Horace, suppressing a shudder.
The wide-set blue eyes beamed with happiness. “Then I may do it? I’ll get Miss Agatha to letter it out for me.… No, I won’t. I’ll do it all, myself. Every bit.”
“I’m sure it will be very nice the way you do it.”
Dinty’s restless mind took another angle. “I wish I could be a doctor. Don’t they ever let females be doctors?”
“Certainly not,” said Horace, horrified at the thought.
“Then I’d be the first. And I’d promise”—she refreshed her memory from the slip of paper in her hand—“to honestly, virtuously, and chastely conduct myself in the practice of physic and surgery. And I’d read all your books.”
A series of clear, beautifully modulated bugle notes sang in the air, to be answered by the long, brazen blast of the eastbound coach. Dinty jumped up and down.
“Silverhorn Ramsey! Silverhorn Ramsey!” she caroled. “The coach is coming, too.”
A robust baritone chanted:
In summer skeeters bite your nose,
In winter nose and toes get froze.
Oh, who, in any time or age,
Would travel by the poxy stage!
“It’s a canaller’s song,” explained Dinty excitedly. “It makes the coachees bitter mad. Then he offers to fight ’em. Let’s go out and see.”
Curiosity strove with Horace’s misgiving that attending public brawls hardly comported with the dignity of his profession. His small companion was tugging at his wrist. He obeyed the double impulsion. But Dinty was disappointed. There was no fight.
The musician was limping toward the corner, his face, in spite of the habitual devil-may-care expression, pinched and pale. Dinty dropped him a curtsey.
“Hi, poppet!” He chucked her under the chin. “How’s my little sweetling?”.
“Nicely, thank you, sir.” She lifted a worshipful gaze to his face.
“And young Æsculapius? I was coming to see you, Doc. Lay your peepers to that.”
He loosened and drew up his left trouser-leg. Below the knee, the empurpled flesh puffed out, taut and globular. Horace gave it but one look.
“Come around to the office,” he said.
At the door, Dinty was dismissed, a most ungracious proceeding, she considered. Seated in the patient’s chair, Silverhorn exposed the wound for exploration.
“Lucky for you that he was a young one,” commented the physician, working busily.
“How do you know that?”
“From the small punctures. They’re close together.”
“Not such a fool as you look, are you, Doc?” said the patient graciously.
Dr. Amlie straightened up. “Civility from you, sir,” said he firmly, “or out you go.”
The patient closed his eyes for a second. “I’m not feeling up to a fight,” he admitted. “So civility’s the word. What can you do for me, Doc? It hurts like hell.”
Dr. Amlie neatly lanced the wound, criss-cross, pressing out the blood, though he knew that the poison was already well disseminated. He then put on a dressing of opiumized ointment, and bound it in with cooling plantain and wilted cabbage-leaf.
“Tell me about it,” said he.
“I was riding over from Macedon where I’ve got an old uncle. Down by the tamarack bog I stopped and went in to you-know-what, when this fellow up and let me have it. Must have been lying under the log. Didn’t even wait to rattle. Might have been in a worse place, huh?” He grinned.
“How much did you drink?” asked Dr. Amlie suspiciously.
“All I had with me. Short of a pint. It stopped the pain and gave me the notion of playing myself to town before I died. Will I die, Doc? Will I die and be shoveled in the cold, dark ground, as the song says?”
“Not of this. You’ll die if you drink a pint of raw rum often enough.”
The patient stared insolently. “Now, by the guts of Goliath! What have we here? Are you telling Silverhorn Ramsey what he may and mayn’t do?”
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