They Called Her Mrs. Doc.

by Janette Oke

  “Needs a little exercise and it will be as good as new,” he assured her, and Cassandra prayed that he might be right.

  Cassandra did not get back to her kitchen duties as quickly as she had hoped. Samuel still needed her in the office. His fingers were getting more usable, his arm a bit stronger, his hand able to accomplish one more little task with each passing day, but the progress still seemed to be painfully slow.

  So Cassandra hurried through her morning chores and went to the office for a few hours each morning and again in the afternoon.

  “I don’t know how you do it,” said Virginia one day as she placed two of her freshly baked pies on Cassandra’s kitchen table. “Here I am at home all day and I can hardly keep up.”

  Cassandra sighed and poured steaming tea from the china teapot.

  “I’m not doing much of a job of it either,” she admitted dourly. “I feel that the children are being cheated of a mother—and the people of the town are being cheated of a doctor.”

  She sat down heavily in her chair. She was tired.

  “Nonsense,” said Virginia. “The children have never said one word to me about feeling cheated. In fact, I think they really are quite proud of you. I heard Chrissie boasting to her friends the other day about your care of the little girl with the dog bite.”

  Cassandra paled at the mention of the case. It had been horrible, and it had been all that she could do to follow Samuel’s orders in the stitching. But Samuel’s fingers still did not work properly, and the child would have been terribly scarred had the stitching not been done. Even now, Cassandra prayed that God would take her bungled work and perform His own miracle.

  Samuel had praised her work. “I couldn’t have done better.” Then he had teased. “Your mama’s lessons in needlework have paid off.”

  Cassandra was too drained of energy to have a quip ready in response.

  “I just hope her arm won’t be too scarred,” she managed to say to Virginia now.

  “Her mother is most pleased with how it is healing,” said Virginia and stirred sugar in her tea.

  “You know, Virginia, if it wasn’t so totally exhausting, I might even—well, not enjoy—but at least get satisfaction from working with Samuel. When you see the needs of the people—well, I have learned to understand why he feels the way he does about practicing medicine.”

  Virginia nodded. “I can well understand,” she said simply. “I sometimes wish I had something that important to give.”

  The words stayed with Cassandra as she unpinned her hair and let it fall about her shoulders. There were a few gray hairs among the red. Her mother had told her that red-headed people sometimes grayed prematurely. Cassandra studied the strands and mused, “Am I graying early, or am I really that old?”

  She did not wish to answer her own question. But she had noticed no sign of gray among Samuel’s heavy locks.

  She turned her thoughts back to Virginia’s words. Some–thing important to give. She repeated them again and again to herself, trying to discover and sort out the full meaning. I wonder if any human being really has something more im–portant to give than another—or is it just a little less showy, she pondered.

  “I know Samuel is important to the people of town,” she murmured, “and Morris with his drugstore, and Pastor and Mrs. Ray—but I wonder if old Mr. Marshall with his watery eyes and shaky hands isn’t giving just as much in another way. The children love his stories and he always has time for them.”

  Samuel came in just then and looked inquiringly at her. “I’m just wondering,” she explained, “what it means for people to have something important to give.” He still looked puzzled, and she went on. “Like Mr. Stockwood, for instance. Can’t imagine how many folks he’s helped by providing nails and screens and doorknobs and butcher knives. And Miss Everly, with her stern ways but her real love for the children she teaches—and even Mrs. Clement, with her sharp tongue and sharper eyes. I know there’s a good many times that she gave me cause to think. Is any one of these people more important than the other?” She paused and Samuel watched her face carefully.

  “No, I don’t think so,” Cassandra answered her own question. “We just have different roles to play—but if we are doing our job properly, then God uses our bit to help the whole. We all have something important to give. Whether it be little in our own eyes or in the eyes of others, or whether it be great. I know that Virginia has certainly given generously to me over the years. I don’t know if I could have struggled through those first years without her, and her wise and continual spiritual encouragement—I need it even now. And she watches the children when I have to help in the office. I know that if I’m not around when they come home from school, Virginia will be watching out for them. That’s been a real comfort on busy days.”

  Samuel came over and put his arms around her.

  When they prayed together before retiring that night, Cassandra said, “Thank you, Father, for Virginia. And for Pastor and Mrs. Ray, and old Mr. Marshall and even Mrs. Clement—and every member of this little town—this community. We need one another. Might we never forget to give our ‘important something’ for the good of us all.”

  Samuel’s “amen” echoed hers.

  After another exhausting day, Cassandra and Samuel arrived home from the office one evening to find five forlorn children sitting on the back step.

  “You can’t go in the kitchen,” said Peter, happy he could be first to tell the news. “It’s full of smoke.”

  “Did you have a fire?” asked Samuel, concern edging his voice. Cassandra rushed on ahead to peer through the window at the damage.

  It was difficult to see in the room, for the smoke still hung heavy in the air.

  “What happened?” asked Cassandra, fearing the worst.

  “Vivie,” said Thomas simply.

  “Vivie, what happened?” demanded Cassandra. “Are you hurt?”

  Vivian seemed unsure if she should cry, beg mercy, or thrust out her chin in defiance. She chose to do all three.

  “I was baking,” she said with a sob, her chin lifting with a stubborn set. “I didn’t mean to burn it.”

  “Is that all?” said Cassandra with a sigh of relief.

  “She used all your eggs,” accused Thomas.

  “She was making an angel cake,” said Peter proudly.

  “Angel food cake,” corrected Vivian in spite of her tears and with strong emphasis on the missing word. Joseph sat a little apart, looking disgusted with the whole affair. Christina, with motherly concern, had been trying to comfort them all.

  “Where did you learn about an angel food cake?” asked Cassandra curiously as she leaned over to brush away Vivian’s tears with her hankie.

  “I heard Mrs. Stock wood telling Mrs. Clement. She said they are delicious and that you use lots of eggs and beat and beat—”

  “She used all the eggs,” put in Thomas again.

  “Angel food cakes are difficult to bake,” said Cassandra, straightening up and tucking away her hankie. “You should have waited for Mama—”

  “But I couldn’t,” wailed Vivian, the tears flowing again. “It was a surprise cake.”

  “A surprise cake?” asked Samuel.

  “For Mama’s birthday,” said Vivian, as though that should explain everything.

  “It’s not my birthday,” said Cassandra.

  Vivian’s defiance returned. “I heard Papa say to Mrs. Foigt, ‘See if you can discover what Cassandra would like for her birthday,’ ” she said with her nose rising into the air. “I heard it myself.”

  Samuel began to laugh and Cassandra looked at him in surprise and then began to laugh along with him.

  “Mama’s birthday isn’t for three weeks yet,” he informed the children.

  “Then why did you say it?”

  “Because I wanted to know ahead so that if I needed to order from Calgary, I would have plenty of time,” answered Samuel and reached out a hand to draw Vivian up against his side.

 
“She used all the eggs,” Thomas tried again.

  But Cassandra didn’t seem to hear him.

  “Thank you for thinking about me, honey—even if it didn’t work out well,” and she gave her daughter a hug.

  “I told her she should have made sugar cookies,” said Christina with a slightly know-it-all tone. “She knows how to do those.”

  “Or ginger snaps,” put in Peter. “She never burned her ginger snaps yet.”

  “What will we do for supper?” groused the practical Joseph, who had arrived home, tired and hungry, from his after-school job at Mr. Stockwood’s store.

  “Well—it might be a good night to eat at the hotel,” suggested Samuel and got a roar of approval. “In the meantime I’ll open the windows and see if we can clear some of the smoke out of the kitchen.”

  And Samuel went to open up the house.

  “It’s breezy,” he said when he joined the family. “And I opened the windows straight through. Perhaps it will clear things out a bit.”

  Yes, thought Cassandra. If there is one thing that we can count on here, it’s the breeze.

  “Well, let’s go,” said Samuel, “or we’ll miss our supper.”

  To which Thomas replied dourly, “We might have to stay there for breakfast, too. She used all the eggs.”

  Samuel’s hand was becoming more usable every day. Cassandra dared to hope that he would soon be able to handle the office on his own and she could return to her housework.

  But for the time being, he still needed her hands occasionally, and she felt that it was wise for her to be available as much as possible.

  The community folks were quite accustomed to seeing her in the doctor’s office and no one questioned her right to be there.

  In fact, neighbor women were beginning to stop her on the street or in the grocers to ask what they should do for Johnnie’s cough or Mary’s fever. Cassandra hardly knew how to respond. She didn’t wish to dismiss the illness casually or seem unconcerned. At times she answered with a response she had heard Samuel give a patient for a similar malady, always adding that if they felt further concern to bring the patient to the office where Samuel might see him.

  They always nodded their heads in complete agreement, seeming to feel that the matter had been properly attended to.

  This concerned Cassandra and she discussed it with Samuel, who seemed to feel that the “switch” of doctors held no threat to the community. “If they really need me, they’ll call,” he said with confidence, but Cassandra still felt uneasy and on several occasions made sure that Samuel himself popped by the house in question and took a look at the patient.

  But it was little Ross Hansen who renamed Cassandra.

  It happened one day when the office waiting room seemed to hold more patients than usual. Cassandra had just helped Samuel extract a nasty sliver from the small boy’s hand. Samuel then proceeded with the bandaging, a task he was now able to do easily.

  As the boy and his mother turned to leave the office, she said to her son, “Say thank you to Doc.”

  The lad turned his big brown eyes, now dry of all tears, toward Samuel and said a rather shaky, “Thank you, Doc.”

  Before Samuel could answer, the child turned to Cassandra. “Thank you, Mrs. Doc,” he said solemnly.

  Laughter rippled around the room and Cassandra smiled at the wee boy.

  “You are welcome, Ross. I hope your finger gets better quickly.”

  When the door closed on the pair, the people in the room enjoyed a chuckle again—and the name stuck.

  Chapter Twenty

  Mothering

  It felt good to be back in her own kitchen without the requirement of going to Samuel’s office daily. But Cassandra found that she never felt quite the same about Samuel’s occupation after serving with him for that period of time.

  When he came home at night, tired from a heavy work load, Cassandra was anxious to hear about every patient he had treated, their problem and his cure. Sometimes she feared she might tax him with all her questions, but he never seemed to mind sharing the day’s happenings—though, now and then, his answer was simply, “Confidential,” and Cassandra just went on to another topic.

  As one season followed another and one year pushed the past one off the wall calendar, Cassandra saw her family grow up before her eyes.

  It didn’t seem possible to her that Joseph, their oldest, was about to finish high school. He had switched jobs now and was no longer working for Mr. Stockwood after school, but for Mr. Hick, a local builder. Joseph seemed to love to swing the hammer and only came to his father with one mashed thumb.

  Mr. Hick had not been very sympathetic about the thumb. “Best way to learn,” he said dryly. “Ya git one good whack and ya never leave it in the wrong place agin.”

  Cassandra wasn’t sure it was a necessary lesson, and her mother-heart gave a sharp lurch as she looked at Joseph’s bruised and bleeding thumb. But the mishap did not deter him. Before it had barely begun to heal he was back at the construction site.

  “That’s where the money is,” he told his parents with youthful confidence.

  But Cassandra had other dreams for young Joseph.

  “Do you think we should send Joseph back East for his education?” she asked Samuel as they prepared for bed one evening.

  Samuel thought about it and then replied, “What do you have in mind?”

  “Well—perhaps a doctor like his father and grandfather—or a—an attorney. We need more attorneys—or even a teacher or—”

  “Have you talked to him about his future?” asked Samuel.

  “No,” admitted Cassandra. “Have you?”

  “Not really—though I hear his enthusiastic reports now and then.”

  “You mean—construction?”

  Samuel nodded his head and removed his tie.

  Cassandra turned her face to study her husband. A tiny bit of gray was beginning to show at his temples. She thought it becoming. But he still looked almost boyish with his forward lock of hair.

  “Really, Samuel,” she said. “Do you think construction is wise? I mean—do you really think that one’s livelihood could be counted on in that field?”

  “I don’t know,” replied Samuel thoughtfully. “There’s an awful lot of building going on. The boy’s right. Some people are getting rich.”

  It sounded very “iffy” to Cassandra, even though she knew their own small town had grown a good deal since she had entered it as a young bride close to twenty years earlier. Not that builders aren’t good people and all, she reasoned with herself, but it’s such a rough and tumble life. And Joseph has a good mind… .

  “What do you think we should do?” asked Cassandra aloud.

  “I think we should talk to the boy and see what he thinks he wants to do with his life,” responded Samuel.

  “You know what he’ll say,” said Cassandra, her feelings still negative.

  “What?” asked Samuel innocently and tossed his white shirt in the laundry basket.

  “He’ll say construction,” responded Cassandra.

  “If he’s got his mind made up for construction, then he won’t make a very good doctor,” replied Samuel, and that seemed to settle the matter.

  As soon as he had graduated from the local school, Joseph started into construction full time with Mr. Hick. The gentleman had been right. Joseph never came home with a banged-up thumb again.

  He loved the work even though he was often so tired he could scarcely drag himself to the supper table. Vivian, who considered herself quite a young lady, often complained at the way he smelled, but Joseph would only smile and answer smartly, “It’s the smell of money. Don’t you recognize it?”

  “It’s the smell of disgusting sweat,” she would reply, tossing her head much as her mother had at one time been wont to do.

  “I worry about Joseph,” Cassandra said to Samuel one day. “He seems terribly obsessed with amassing wealth.”

  But when a visiting missionary had a service in
the local church and Joseph gave a large donation from his personal savings without the blink of an eye, Cassandra’s eyes filled with tears and she admitted that she might have judged her son too harshly.

  It was not difficult to persuade Vivian toward further education. But her chosen field was not nursing, as her father had long ago forecast. She chose instead to study the Arts.

  “What do you plan to do with it?” asked Samuel.

  “There are ever so many ways one can go,” replied Vivian.

  “You don’t need ‘ever-so-many-ways’,” said her practical father. “You just need one.”

  Vivian’s stubborn chin protruded. “I’ll choose when I know more about the choices,” she maintained, and Samuel nodded and they sent her off to Montreal to study the Arts. But it was awfully hard for Cassandra to let her go. The only comfort was knowing she would be under the protective wing of Cassandra’s parents.

  Samuel had been called away on an emergency one day in late November and Cassandra paced the kitchen floor, lifting the curtain to look out the window every now and then. Her eyes would always go to the sky. It looked as if a storm was brewing and Cassandra did not like the looks of it.

  “Please, Father,” she prayed. “Let him have time to make it home first.”

  But the darkness of evening closed in around them and still no Samuel.

  Christina sensed her mother’s uneasiness. “He’ll see the storm coming and stay put,” she tried to assure her mother.

  “I do hope so,” said Cassandra, running a nervous hand over her hair.

  “Would you like me to go to meet him?” asked Thomas, now a strapping youth with wide shoulders and almost as big a grin.

  “No,” responded Cassandra quickly. “It would just be one more to worry about out in the weather.”

  “I’d go with him,” offered Peter.

  “No,” said Cassandra firmly and paced to the window again.

  The night had fallen and along with it had come the wind. It tore at the limbs of the trees in the yard, and lashed out at the drain pipes that extended to the rain barrel. The swing, now hanging unused in the yard, swung back and forth in dizzying arcs, now lifting this way, then flipping that, then crashing blindly into one of the side poles that suspended it. The gate creaked and strained against each new blast. Cassandra feared that it might be pulled from its hinges.