Kenneth was jubilant at securing his first surgical case since his return to Central City, though his pleasure was tinged with doubt as to the ethics of the manner in which it had come to him. He did not let that worry him very long, however, but began his preparations for the operation.
First he telephoned to Mrs. Johnson, who, before she married and settled down in Central City, had been a trained nurse at a coloured hospital at Atlanta. She hurried over at once. Neat, quiet, and efficient, she took charge immediately of preparations, sterilizing the array of shiny instruments, preparing wads of absorbent cotton, arranging bandages and catgut and haemostatics.
Kenneth left all this to Mrs. Johnson, for he knew in her hands it, would be well done. He telephoned to Dr. Williams to ask that he give the anaesthesia. In his excitement Kenneth neglected to put in his voice the note of asking a great and unusual favor of Dr. Williams. That eminent physician, eminent in his own eyes, cleared his throat several times before replying, while Kenneth waited at the other end of the line. He realized his absolute dependence on Dr. Williams, for he knew no white doctor would assist a Negro surgeon or even operate with a coloured assistant. There was none other in Central City who could give the ether to Mrs. Bradley. It made him furious that Dr. Williams should hesitate so long. At the same time, he knew he must restrain the hot and burning words that he would have used. The pompous one hinted of the pressure of his own work—work that would keep him busy all day. Into his words he injected the note of affront at being asked—he, the coloured physician of Central City—to assist a younger man. Especially on that man’s first case. Kenneth swallowed his anger and pride, and pleaded with Dr. Williams at least to come over. Finally, the older physician agreed in a condescending manner to do so.
Hurrying back to his office, Kenneth found Mrs. Bradley arranged on the table ready for the operation. Examining her, he found she was in delirium, her eyes glazed, her abdomen hard and distended, and she had a temperatiure of 105 degrees. He hastily sterilized his hands and put on his gown and cap. As he finished his preparations, Dr. Williams in leisurely manner strolled into the room with a benevolent and patronizing “Howdy, Kenneth, my boy. I won’t be able to help you out after all. I’ve got to see patients of my own.”
He emphasized “my own,” for he had heard of the manner by which Kenneth had obtained the case of Mrs. Bradley. Kenneth, pale with anger, excited over his first real case in Central City, stared at Dr. Williams in amazement at his words.
“But, Dr. Williams, you can’t do that! Mrs. Bradley here is dying!”
The older doctor looked around patronizingly at the circle of anxious faces. Jim Bradley, his face lined and seamed with toil, the lines deepened in distress at the agony of his wife and the imminence of losing her, gazed at him with dumb pleading in his eyes, pleading without spoken words with the look of an old, faithful dog beseeching its master. Bob looked with a malevolent glare at this pompous sleekness, as though he would like to spring upon him. Mrs. Johnson plainly showed her contempt of such callousness on the part of one who bore the title, however poorly, of physician. In Kenneth’s eyes was a commingling of eagerness and rage and bitterness and anxiety. On Emma Bradley’s face there was nothing but the pain and agony of her delirious ravings. Dr. Williams seemed to enjoy thoroughly his little moment of triumph. He delayed speaking in order that it might be prolonged as much as possible. The silence was broken by Jim Bradley.
“Doc, won’t you please he’p?” he pleaded. “She’s all I got!”
Kenneth could remain silent no longer. He longed to punch that fat face and erase from it the supercilious smirk that adorned it.
“Dr. Williams,” he began with cold hatred in his voice, “either you are going to give this anaesthesia or else I’m going to go into every church in Central City and tell exactly what you’ve done here today.”
Dr. Williams turned angrily on Kenneth.
“Young man, I don’t allow anybody to talk to me like that—least of all, a young whippersnapper just out of school . . .” he shouted.
By this time Kenneth’s patience was at an end. He seized the lapels of the other doctor’s coat in one hand and thrust his clenched fist under the nose of the now thoroughly alarmed Dr. Williams.
“Are you going to help—or aren’t you?” he demanded.
The situation was becoming too uncomfortable for the older man. He could stand Kenneth’s opposition but not the ridicule which would inevitably follow the spreading of the news that he had been beaten up and made ridiculous by Kenneth. He swallowed—a look of indecision passed over his face as he visibly wondered if Kenneth really dared hit him—followed by a look of fear as Kenneth drew back his fist as though to strike. Discretion seemed the better course to pursue—he could wait until a later and more propitious date for his revenge—he agreed to help. A look of relief came over Jim Bradley’s face. A grin covered Bob’s as he saw his brother showing at last some signs of fighting spirit. Without further words Kenneth prepared to operate. . . .
Martha’s Vacation
VARDIS FISWER
MARTHA stood by the great front door of the hospital, feeling very timid and alone. She pressed her homely face to a pane of glass and looked in; and then, seeing that her nose had stained the glass, she took a soiled handkerchief and tried to wipe the stain off. She was still briskly rubbing when the door was opened and a nurse in white stepped outside and looked at her.
“Oh!” cried Martha, abashed. Her fingers, working against her thigh, fed the handkerchief into a wad within her palm. She glanced guiltily at the pane of glass and then at the nurse. And the nurse looked at Martha’s huge belly, at her worn shoes, at her round earnest face.
“You wish to see someone?”
“Uh-huh,” Martha said. “I——”
“Will you come in?” The brisk manner of the nurse frightened Martha. She entered a gleaming hallway and looked about anxiously. The nurse said: “This way, please,” and her voice was like the edge of a razor. She led Martha into an office that was one spotless gleam. “Wait here a moment.”
The nurse left the office, her clothes alive with cleanliness, and Martha drew her breath on a great sigh. She looked at the chairs, but they were very clean and she dared not sit on them. She looked behind her to see if her shoes had tracked the floor. And she was standing here, trembling a little and feeling very lonely, when another nurse enterd. The nurse seated herself at a desk.
“Will you sit down?” she asked.
Martha sank weakly to a chair.
“When do you expect your child?”
“I——” Martha stared, helpless. “I feel pains,” she said.
“You do?” The nurse frowned and Martha was paralyzed. “Have you made arrangements here?”
“Huh-unh,” Martha said.
“Who sent you here?”
“No one. I just come.”
For a long moment the nurse looked at her. Her eyes, it seemed to Martha, were not friendly. They were clean cold eyes like her dress and the walls.
“Wheres is your husband?”
Martha looked down at the short hands lying in her lap.
“What is your name?”
“Martha Scott.”
“Where are your parents?”
“I—I don’t have none.”
“You mean you’re an orphan? How old are you?”
“Twenty-two.”
“Do you work?”
“Yes, when I’n get work.”
“What kind of work?”
“Oh, just anything. Just—just anything.”
“And the father of your child, won’t he marry you?”
Martha again stared at her hands. She hesitated; when she looked up to meet the steady gaze of the nurse, there was terror in her eyes.
“Huh-unh,” she said.
II
Martha felt better now. She was lying in a spotless bed and her pain was done. There was a strong smell in the room but everything else was very lovely and nic
e. Somewhere in this great building was her infant but she did not think of it; there was so much else to think of : the soft deep bed on which she lay, the clean fragrance of the bedding, the touch of cool linen on her hot flesh. There was a picture on the wall and she thought it was very nice, too: a young girl in a lovely place, with grass and running water and trees. In all her years she had never once seen running water.
When a nurse came, bringing her son, she took the tiny thing in her arms and laid it to her breast.
“How you feeling?”
“Just fine.” Martha looked up and smiled. Never before had anyone asked how she felt. The people here were very nice. “I like it here,” she said.
“Do you have enough to eat?”
The nurse left the room and Martha suckled her child. The tiny sucking mouth gave her a little pleasure but not the deep pleasure George had given her. George had lain against her, his hungry mouth to her breast, his curly hair in her face, smelling of something sweet. She had been very happy then. Well, she was very happy now, in a different way. She might be here a long time—she wondered how long—having food brought to her bedside, having people smile at her and ask how she felt. She brushed her teeth now. The nurse had given her a new brush, taking it out of a sealed package, and powder that was sweet in her mouth. Afternoons, she chose from a bowl of fruit, taking a very little, not caring to take much. . . .
“Is that all you want?”
“Yes, that’s all.”
“Honest?”
“Yes, honest,” Martha looked up and smiled. “And thanks.”
III
After a week passed she sat up in bed and tried to realize to its fullest the wonder of this place. There was no unpleasant smell in her room now. The nurse smelled as if she had just been starched and laundered; and so did the bed. She looked around her, thinking of her own dark hallway room. The pillows here were soft and she loved to bury her face in them and feel their cool cleanness; to move her head and feel the softness on the back of her neck. She loved to stretch out in this bed, thrusting with her naked legs into the cool recesses, remembering the hot world outside; reaching out with her arms and feeling the delicious chill; drawing the sheet, almost stiff with cleanliness and with a sweet smell, to her mouth and breathing of it.
The nurse had brought her some magazines. She did not read easily and she had to spell many of the words out and many of them she did not understand; but she felt her way through these love-tales and they thrilled her in a way George had thrilled her: a sudden rapture that came awake in her and moved in a flood to her heart. It was nice to lie here in a clean bed, with no work to do, and read of lovely things.
“Do you need more light?”
“No, ma’am. I’n see all right.”
“Do you like these stories?”
“Yes, ma’am.” Martha looked at her with eyes wide and bright. “They’re awful nice, I think.”
Every day a doctor came in. He was a tall man with a mustache and .Martha thought he was very good-looking and very kind. He smiled at her and asked how she felt.
“Just fine,” Martha said, her smile answering his.
“You look fit as a fiddle.”
“I sure feel fine.” Martha stretched luxuriously under the sheet. “I like it here,” she said.
“You do? Most persons don’t like a hospital.”
“Oh, I do. I think it’s awful nice. I could stay here a long time.”
And when, one day, the nurse said: “You will leave tomorrow, you know,” Martha stared at her and felt lost.
“Tomorrow?”
“Yes.”
“Please, couldn’t I stay a little while longer?”
“I’m afraid not. You see, other patients are coming all the time. You’ve been here two weeks, you know.”
“I have! It seems like two days.” She looked around her. “Like two hours,” she said. “Couldn’t I stay a little longer? . . . Couldn’t I?”
“I’m afraid not.” The nurse did not look at her.
“Wouldn’t the doctor let me?”
“The doctor doesn’t have anything to do with it.”
“Oh,” Martha said. She lay in silence, wondering. “If I could just stay one more day,” she said, “it would be awful nice.”
The next morning with the babe in her arms she stood in a hallway and looked back at her room. She returned and looked in, and a nurse came and smiled and led her away.
IV
Fifteen months passed and Martha stood again at the great front door of the hospital. She did not press her face to the glass and look in. She opened the big door and entered, and nurses hurried by on slim-slippered feet and did not look at her. She advanced a little, seeking the office where she had been questions. The white nurse was there.
“Hello,” Martha said.
“You wish to see someone?”
“Please. I’d like to see Miss Anderson. She’s a nurse here.”
The woman gave Martha a long and curious stare.
“Weren’t you here once before?”
“Yes.” Martha brightened and stepped into the office. “I’m Martha Scott,” she said.
The nurse turned to records and searched among them. For a long moment she looked at one. She turned to Martha, her eyes unfriendly. “And you’re back again!”
Martha was radiant now. Her tired face smiled and her eyes filled with happiness that was clean and bright.
“And, please,” she said, “could I have the same room I had last time?”
The Scarlet Plaque
JACK LONDON
THE WAY led along upon what had once been the embankment of a railroad. But no train had run upon it for many years. The forest on either side swelled up the slopes of the embankment and crested across it in a green wave of trees and bushes. The trail was as narrow as a man’s body, and was no more than a wild-animal runway. Occasionally, a piece of rusty iron, showing through the forest-mould, advertised that the rail and the ties still remained. In one place, a ten-inch tree, bursting through at a connection, had lifted the end of a rail clearly into view. The tie had evidently followed the rail, held to it by the spike long enough for its bed to be filled with gravel and rotten leaves, so that now the crumbling, rotten timber thrust itself up at a curious slant. Old as the road was, it was manifest that it had been the mono-rail type.
An old man and a boy travelled along this runway. They moved slowly, for the old man was very old, a touch of palsy made his movements tremulous, and he leaned heavily upon his staff. A rude skull-cap of goat-skin protected his head from the sun. From beneath this fell a scant fringe of stained and dirty-white hair. A visor, ingeniously made from a large leaf, shielded his eyes, and from under this he peered at the way of his feet on the trail. His beard, which should have been snow-white but which showed the same weather-wear and camp-stain as his hair, fell nearly to his waist in a great tangled mass. About his chest and shoulders hung a single, mangy garment of goat-skin. His arms and legs, withered and skinny, betokened extreme age, as well as did their sunburn and scars and scratches betoken long years of exposure to the elements.
The boy, who led the way, checking the eagerness of his muscles to the slow progress of the elder, likewise wore a single garment—a ragged-edged piece of bear skin, with a hole in the middle through which he had thrust his head. He could not have been more than twelve years old. Tucked coquettishly over one ear was the freshly severed tail of a pig. In one hand he carried a medium-sized bow and an arrow. On his back was a quiverful of arrows. From a sheath hanging about his neck on a thong, projected the battered handle of a hunting knife. He was as brown as a berry, and walked softly, with almost a catlike tread. In marked contrast with his sunburned skin were his eyes—blue, deep blue, but keen and sharp as a pair of gimlets. They seemed to bore into all about him in a way that was habitual. As he went along he smelled things, as well, his distended, quivering nostrils carrying to his brain an endless series of messages from the outside world. Also,
his hearing was acute, and had been so trained that it operated automatically. Without conscious effort, he heard all the slight sounds in the apparent quiet—heard, and differentiated, and classified these sounds—whether they were of the wind rustling the leaves, of the humming of bees and gnats, of the distant rumble of the sea that drifted to him only in lulls, or of the gospher, just under his foot, shoving a pouchful of earth into the entrance of his hole.
Suddenly he became alertly tense. Sound, sight, and odor had given him a simultaneous warning. His hand went back to the old man, touching him, and the pair stood still. Ahead, at one side of the top of the embankment, arose a crackling sound, and the boy’s gaze was fixed on the tops of the agitated bushes. Then a large bear, a grizzly, crashed into view, and likewise stopped abruptly, at sight of the humans. He did not like them, and growled querulously. Slowly the boy fitted the arrow to the bow, and slowly he pulled the bowstring taut. But he never removed his eyes from the bear. The old man peered from under his green leaf at the danger, and stood as quietly as the boy. For a few seconds this mutual scrutinizing went on; then, the bear betraying a growing irritability, the boy, with a movement of his head, indicated that the old man must step aside from the trail and go down the embankment. The boy followed, going backward, still holding the bow taut and ready. They waited till a crashing among the bushes from the opposite side of the embankment told them the bear had gone on. The boy grinned as he led back to the trail.
“A big un, Granser,” he chuckled.
The old man shook his head.
“They get thicker every day,” he complained in a thin, undependable falsetto. “who’d have thought I’d live to see the time when a man would be afraid of his life on the way to Cliff House. When I was a boy, Edwin, men and women and little babies used to come out here from San Francisco by tens of thousands on a nice day. And there weren’t any bears then. No. sir. They used to pay money to look at them in cages, they were that rare.”
“What is money, Granser?”
Before the old man could answer, the boy recollected and triumphantly shoved his hand into a pouch under his bear-skin and pulled forth a battered and tarnished silver dollar. The old man’s eyes glistened, as he held the coin close to them.
A Treasury of Doctor Stories Page 29