Mattie

by Judy Alter

  “But I might have to treat men someday,” I protested in Dr. Dinsmore’s office, pacing back and forth across the tiny room.

  “Sit down, for heaven’s sake, Mattie. You’ll kick over my stacks of papers.”

  “I . . . well, I’m upset. But I don’t know who to complain to.”

  “You probably have a point, but there’s that old-fashioned notion still going around out there. Nice ladies would never treat men.”

  “A lot of men would have died in the Civil War if that was true,” I shot back. “I’m not man-crazy or anything like that. I mean, if my reputation was questionable . . .”

  He leaned back in his chair, stretching his arms over his head, and smiled at me. “No, your reputation is without a blemish, maybe too much so for your own sake . . .”

  “What’s that supposed to mean?” Looking back, I know this was a difficult moment for him.

  “Do you intend to be a spinster doctor?”

  “I . . . I hadn’t thought about it. But no, I don’t think so.”

  “Well, Mattie, you’re nearly twenty now, and no young man has ever come courting, mostly because you don’t encourage anyone.”

  “I . . . how do you encourage them?” I had never felt more awkward and inferior. I remembered Mama and how men always found her attractive, even when she was sick. I suspect my own sense of inferiority was planted by Mama, unconsciously, when she teased me about being plain and solemn.

  “Oh, Mattie!” Dr. Dinsmore was laughing now. “We’ll have to teach you how to bat your eyes. Never mind. I like having you to myself. Come on, let’s go home.”

  “No,” I said stubbornly. “I may not know how to encourage young men to court me, but I still want to know how to treat men who come to me as patients.”

  “I didn’t distract you, did I? All right, I’ll speak to Dr. Wolfe, who’s in charge of the dispensary. Now can we go?”

  But he left me with that strong feeling of inadequacy, one that later was to surface in my marriage to Em Jones. I was well aware that I was not attractive, with big, dark eyes that usually had circles under them these days, those high cheekbones and lots of dark hair that I simply pulled back into a knot. Too, I was tall, nearly as tall as Dr. Dinsmore, and I never felt graceful. All those years of comparing myself to Mama had done nothing to improve the way I felt about myself. Years later, when young girls came to me for advice, I always tried to find some way of complimenting them, some way of letting them know they were attractive, because I knew how awful it can be to think of yourself as an ugly duckling.

  Pete Rendon courted me in a way. He came for supper on Sunday several times, even went to church with us, and he did walk home with me when Dr. Dinsmore was busy or on the rare days I left earlier than he did. But I didn’t take Pete seriously. He had country-bumpkin manners, slurping his food and talking with his mouth full. I once had to kick Sara because I could see she, who had been corrected so often herself, was about to warn him, “Don’t talk with your mouth full!” The manners were indicative of a certain polish that Pete lacked and Dr. Dinsmore had taught me to appreciate. None of us were sorry when Pete stopped coming around the house. I saw him later with a pretty blond town girl.

  In the fall of my second year, Pete was replaced as my study companion and friend by the second girl to enter the Omaha Medical College. Cora Strothers was from Omaha, twenty-three years old, and very bright. She was the first woman friend I’d ever had. In childhood I’d missed the girlfriend part of growing up, and Cora, because she was such a good friend, made me realize what I’d missed. We became inseparable, in and out of school, and I even thought of asking if she wanted to move in to Dr. Dinsmore’s because it was so much closer to the school than her home. Besides, she came from a large family and a noisy house, and she often complained that studying at home was difficult for her.

  “No, Mattie, I don’t think that’s a good idea.” Dr. Dinsmore surprised me, because I thought he would be enthusiastic about my plan. “I don’t think Cora Strothers has the quality you do.”

  “Quality?”

  “I don’t think she will be the physician you will. And frankly, I’m jealous. You spend all your time with her and have none left for me these days.” He said it lightly, with a casual arm around my shoulders as we stood in the parlor, but some instinct, some feeling I wasn’t used to, told me he meant it more than casually. I was uncomfortable.

  Mr. Reeves and Will Henry came to Omaha that year. It was the first time I’d seen my brother in five long years, and I was like a little kid when I got the letter saying to expect them. They took the railroad from a place called Fort Sidney, some thirty miles from where they were living in a soddie.

  “All these years, I’ve heard about soddies. Tell me exactly what a soddie is.” I remembered they had lived in a soddie in Kansas before Mama died.

  “Oh, Mattie, it’s a house.” Will Henry was thirteen that year, gangly and all legs and awkwardness. He would be tall, like me, you could tell from his huge hands and feet, but he hadn’t gotten there yet. He had a thick patch of brown hair, pale like Mama’s, but his eyes were like mine, large and dark. On him, they were attractive, I thought. Now he bubbled over with laughter at my ignorance. “You build it of chunks of sod from the prairie.”

  “A house made of dirt?” I was incredulous.

  “Well, kind of, yeah, but it’s warm inside, and the dirt doesn’t bother you much. Pop put net over the ceiling to catch the worst of what falls down.”

  “It falls down! Will Henry, you must come to visit me often, because I swear to heaven I’ll never set foot in a house made of dirt where the ceiling falls in.” I stamped my foot jokingly to emphasize my horror.

  He laughed all the harder. “Tell her about a dugout, Pop.”

  I had noticed before that he called Mr. Reeves “Pop” and that there was a strong affection between them. His Pop was the father neither of us ever had, and I was glad he had that relationship. It was the same as what I fancied I had with Dr. Dinsmore.

  Mr. Reeves just sat back, grinning, and said, “You tell her, son. You lived in one long enough.”

  Will Henry chortled gleefully. “It’s half a house and half a hole in the ground,” he told me. “You dig out a place on the side of a rise in the ground, and you shore the edges up with lumber and put a sod roof over it. We lived in one for two years this time before Pop got our soddie built.”

  “Sounds awful,” I shuddered. “Worse, Will Henry, than that little tiny house we grew up in.”

  He grew sad. “Mama would have loved it out here. She never liked Missouri, and she was so much happier after we left there. I miss her.”

  “So do I,” I lied. Strange, but I hadn’t really missed Mama, because she was part of a life so different from what I was living now. But Will Henry would never have understood that.

  When I asked about school, Will Henry twisted his cap in his hand, studied his toe, and mumbled something.

  “He isn’t much of a student,” drawled Mr. Reeves, “but I keep after him. I know it was important to your ma. Will Henry, he’s goin’ back to school this fall.” He said it with such assurance that the boy just nodded.

  They stayed two days, shopping and treating themselves to a meal at the City Hotel. I was glad to see them but relieved when they left and I could get back to my studies.

  “Now, Mattie, you come on out west and be a doctor, soon as you get out of school.” Mr. Reeves put a huge arm around my shoulder and hugged me. “You got a home out there, you know.”

  “I know, and I appreciate it, but I’ll probably stay right here in Omaha when I finish school.” I hadn’t thought about that, but I guess it was like staying with Dr. Dinsmore. I hadn’t considered any other possibilities. “Besides, I told you, I don’t want to live in a house where dirt falls from the ceiling all the time.” I laughed as I said it, but silently I was remembering that I would never again live poor. Omaha, with its big houses, was the place for me.

  We put them on
the westbound train and watched until it pulled out of the station.

  “Do you miss them, Mattie?” Dr. Dinsmore took my arm and guided me back to the street, where a carriage waited.

  “No,” I said honestly. “I love Will Henry—he was such a sweet little boy —and Mr. Reeves is an awfully nice man, good to Will Henry. But I don’t feel related to them. I feel, well, different.”

  “You are. You live in a totally different world.”

  “I guess both Will Henry and I are fortunate,” I said. “We both found fathers.”

  He looked like I’d hit him. “I hope there’s a difference,” he said grimly, and was silent the rest of the way home.

  I told Cora about Will Henry and the soddie, and she laughed brightly. “Mattie, you better go east with me. I’m going to practice in a city and live in a comfortable house and drive fine horses.”

  “Dreams, Cora, just dreams.”

  “You wait and see,” she challenged.

  I found I liked taking care of patients. I liked talking to them, hearing about their lives, helping with their problems.

  There was the young mother with the colicky baby, both of them exhausted from lack of sleep.

  “You need to get your husband to take care of the baby some, so you can rest,” I told her brashly.

  “He can’t do that. He works in the stockyards.”

  “Well,” I leapt in, “when he’s home at night.”

  “He’s not home,” she said, as though I were a dolt. “He’s down to the tavern, drinking beer. Can’t stand to hear the baby cry.”

  Indignation did me no good. I showed her how to hold the poor little thing over her knee and put some slight pressure on the stomach to ease the pain.

  My supervisor, Dr. Wolfe, upbraided me severely. “You must not pry into your patients’ personal lives. You are here to help them with their health, not to reform the world.”

  “But it’s not right,” I fumed. “Why should that man be allowed to run away from a crying baby and probably spend all their money at the tavern while this poor woman is stuck at home, dead tired?”

  “Really, Miss Armstrong, if you wish to be a physician, you are going to have to learn to control that sense of, uh, self-righteousness. Try giving the baby a very mild dose of laudanum.”

  “I will not! Infants do not need to have their bodies disturbed with poisonous drugs.”

  “Miss Armstrong, I am instructing you on the proper care of a patient, not asking for your opinion.”

  I bit my tongue to keep from mentioning his righteous indignation, but of course I heard about the incident later. Dr. Wolfe wasted no time in complaining to Dr. Dinsmore.

  “Mattie, you must have been a terror. He came into my office with coattails flying, literally fuming. I had to calm him down before I could get the straight of the story.”

  “You didn’t get the straight of the story,” I told him crossly, slamming shut the book I’d been trying to concentrate on. “You got his version. The man was insufferable.”

  “Maybe so, maybe so. I know he has that capacity. But, Mattie, he is the teacher, and you are the student.”

  “That doesn’t matter if he’s wrong. And you know he was. You wouldn’t give anything like that to an infant.”

  I’d caught him, and he knew it. “No. Everyone has his own way of practicing medicine, and you’re right, I prefer to avoid strong potions.”

  “What would you have done for the baby?”

  “Advised frequent small feedings, I guess, and maybe rubbing its back. Did it suck its thumb?”

  “Yes.”

  “Maybe that’s the problem. Taking in too much air with that thumb. They might have to cover the hands or something.”

  “Poor little mite. It would probably cry all the harder then. And that poor woman, taking care of two children, one an infant and the other not quite two. But her husband sitting in a bar! Men are awful!”

  “Give us a chance, Mattie. Not all of us are like that.” He turned serious. “But you must try to be a little more respectful to the faculty, even if you disagree. And Dr. Wolfe has a point, you know. You’ll just wear yourself out for nothing if you try to solve all the personal problems of your patients.”

  It was a lesson I never learned.

  By the time I was nearing completion of my studies, I had earned a good reputation at the school. I knew it not only from the comments of my instructors, even that stick Dr. Wolfe, but from my own feeling about my work. I enjoyed medicine, more than I thought I would. I had probably gone to medical school for all the wrong reasons—because of Mama and Dr. Dinsmore and my need to escape Princeton, but not because it was what Mattie Armstrong wanted to do. But once I was there, I found it was the thing I wanted to do with my life. I was lucky. Most people who choose to do something on the basis of what other people need make themselves miserable.

  Anyway, it appeared that I would stand at the head of my class. Now, mind you, it wasn’t a very big class, only nineteen students, but I was the first woman, and I was proud of my accomplishment.

  I shared the news first with Sara. “Oh, Sara, the most wonderful news. I made the top of the class. When we graduate, I’ll be the first woman and the best student in the class.”

  She jumped up to hug me, and we whirled around again together. And that’s where Dr. Dinsmore found us.

  “Can I join this dance, too?” He laughed and put an arm around each of us.

  Somehow, his presence canceled my dancing mood, and I stood still, though he didn’t take away the arm he had laid casually about my waist.

  “I was . . . celebrating,” I said, but before I could go on, he interrupted me.

  Eyes twinkling, he turned to me and said, “Dean Lacross gave me the news about your academic standing this afternoon. I am proud, of course, but I have to tell you, Mattie, that I knew all along you could do it.”

  “Thank you,” I said. His praise, of course, meant much more to me than anything Dean Lacross could say, but right that moment I was feeling uncertain and I didn’t know why. “I’m glad I made you proud. I . . . I’m rather pleased myself.” Now, I’m not given to crying, and wasn’t then, but I couldn’t help a big tear that welled up in my eyes as I thought that I wished Mama could know. She’d have been proud, too, and much as Dr. Dinsmore had to do with my education, Mama had sown some seeds, set some standards that had helped set the course of my life.

  “Mattie, have you given serious thought to what you will do after you complete your studies?”

  “Not really.” That was a bald-faced lie, but sometimes the future is so hard to face, you just put it off. I’d thought a lot about it. Cora wanted me to wait until she finished her studies, another year, and then we would open an office together, specializing in the treatment of female complaints. It sounded like the most logical thing to do, but I wasn’t sure what to do in that year until Cora finished. I couldn’t envision myself setting up an office in Omaha alone, and I felt it was time I left Dr. Dinsmore’s house. I was afraid to commit myself to any course of action.

  “Well, Dean Lacross spoke to me about something else this afternoon,” Dr. Dinsmore went on, apparently unaware of the tangle of thoughts in my brain. “Sara, dear, why don’t you run help Kate and let me talk to Mattie.”

  Sara pouted at being sent from the room, but she went promptly.

  “Dr. Lacross would like you to stay on at the college, working in the infirmary. You wouldn’t, of course, be directly involved in teaching students until you’ve had a little more experience. But you would see patients and help with the overseeing of cases.”

  I was furious! “Dean Lacross told you that and didn’t tell me this afternoon?”

  “Now, Mattie, don’t be so angry. Of course he did. You know Dr. Lacross’ attitude about women. Even if you are a doctor, he probably doesn’t think you have enough sense to decide your own future.”

  “Well, I do, you know, and I don’t think I want to establish myself in an atmosphere dominat
ed by someone like that.” I turned abruptly and began to gather my things from the table, feeling all the while the flush rise in my face.

  “You’re prettier when you’re angry, Mattie,” he said softly, “but anger isn’t going to get you anywhere. Common sense is. I think the offer is a good one. You could continue to live right here, and for the first time, you’d have an income. Try it for a year and see what happens.”

  “I’ll see,” I said stonily. That night I cried into my pillow for the first time in years, tears of frustration and confusion. Was I always going to be dependent on Dr. Dinsmore and always beaten by the prejudice I met around me? My pleasure in my profession seemed to sour.

  The next morning I marched into Dean Lacross’ office. “Sir, I understand you wish to make me an offer concerning next year.”

  “Ah, Mattie, yes. I see Dr. Dinsmore has talked to you.” He still had the slightly stiff, patronizing air he’d demonstrated at my first interview nearly two years before, and I still resented it mightily.

  “Yes, he did. But I must tell you, Dr. Lacross, that I’d prefer you discuss my future with me rather than with Dr. Dinsmore.”

  “Oh, now, I didn’t mean any harm. I know he advises you and is responsible for you.”

  “He isn’t responsible for me,” I said indignantly. “Dr. Dinsmore has been very good to me, and I rely on his advice. But I am responsible for myself, and I will make my own decisions.”

  Dr. Lacross looked at me a long time, and then he apologized. I was surprised by the apology and tried to be graceful in accepting it, but it threw the proverbial monkey wrench into my plans. I had come to refuse the offer, haughtily, of course, and after talking with Dr. Lacross, I was mollified enough to say that I would consider it.

  Cora encouraged me to take it. “Who knows what will happen in a year, Mattie? I think you should do it. Then, if we still want to go into practice together, you can resign. Besides, my plans might change.”