A Treasury of Doctor Stories

by Fabricant, Noah D. ; Werner, Heinz;

  We finally pulled out.

  We looked out the rear window, and saw our desert hospital recede into the slow pulsing glassy air.

  We could see the little figures, most of them waving.

  Just at the last, one of them held forth his arm, and we saw a puff of smoke, and heard an explosion in our imaginations, and then heard the actual ring and sing-off of a bullet as it struck the rear of the car.

  It was the foreman’s farewell, the last, and futile, opinion of the ignorant.

  The afternoon passed slowly in the train.

  The heat and the dust were hard on everyone, and especially Paneho. I kept wetting down the cracks of the windows, and the doors, to keep the dust out if I could.

  But soon the water was gone, and we had to sit there and hope.

  We reached Eddy in the evening, and it was like a garden, after the endless plains and their sear life. We found green trees and artesian wells and fields of alfalfa.

  There is little more to tell, and what there is, is not about Pancho, except that he made a recovery in the proper time.

  It is about my saying good-by to Sister.

  It seemed to me we had been through a good deal together.

  Now we were going to separate, for she was taking a stage-coach from Eddy on down into Texas somewhere, and I was going to stay a few days and see my patient out of the woods.

  So we said good-by in the lobby of the wooden hotel there, where she was going to spend the night.

  Nobody knew what a good job I had done except Sister, and after we shook hands, and I thanked her for her wonderful help, I waited moment.

  She knew I was nervous and tired, and it was vanity of course, but I needed the little lift she could give me.

  But she didn’t say anything, while I waited, and then as I started to turn off and go, she did speak.

  “I will pray for you, doctor.”

  “What?”

  “That you may overcome your habit of profanity.”

  She bowed and smiled in genuine kindliness, and made her way to the stairs and disappeared.

  Duty is an ideal and it has several interpretations, and these are likely to be closely involved with the character that makes them.

  You might say that Sister and I represented life eternal and life temporal.

  I never saw her again, of course, but if she’s still alive, I have no doubt that she’s one of the happiest people in the world.

  The Three Veterans

  LEANE ZUGSMITH

  AS FAR back as the memory of Miss Riordan, which was three months, for she had been the attending nurse in the clinic for that long, the three old women regularly appeared twice a week. Only when they managed to sit together on the bench, with their old, high-veined legs stiff ahead of them, was she able to distinguish one from the other. Otherwise, Mrs. Farrell could be mistaken for Mrs. Gaffney, or either of the two for Mrs. Betz. Each showed gaps in her front teeth when she broke into her cackle; each had yellow-gray hair wisping from beneath a moldy hat; each wore stained, shapeless outer garments; and each had the same kind of bad leg.

  Outside the dispensary, the three old women did not lay eyes on one another from one clinic day to the next, but inside they formed a sister-hood. Together, they would question newcomers and advise them on their ills, but once The Doctor was in the room, they would remain respectfully silent unless he made one of his lame jokes or scolded them. Promptly then, they would cackle. Anything The Doctor said was a signal for their ingratiating brays of laughter.

  The first three to enter Room 4 this morning, they sat together on the long bench, eyes alert on the door as Miss Riordan called to the patients outside, “Number 6 and 7 for Room 4.”

  When the pale young woman with the fretful infant came in, relin-quishing her numbered green ticket for Room 4, and sat opposite them, Mrs. Betz crooked her soiled finger. “Gutsie-goo,” she said to the baby. Then she addressed the mother. “Something wrong with it?” Mrs. Farrell and Mrs. Gaffney turned professional eyes on the child.

  “She had an infected arm, and now she don’t eat.” The young woman jogged the whimpering infant with her knee.

  “Only your first?” asked Mrs. Farrell, who had borne nine.

  “Yes,” said the young mother.

  The three old women smiled knowingly at one another. Mrs. Gaffney flapped her hand down from the wrist. “Sure, you’re always worrying your poor head off about the first. Isn’t it the truth?” Mrs. Farrell and Mrs. Betz vigorously nodded their heads, and their moldy hats gave off a little puff of dust.

  “When it don’t eat, you want to pull out ten hairs from the right side of your head and braid them and twist them around its little toe,” said Mrs. Betz.

  “Give it honey and tea,” said Mrs. Gaffney.

  “It’s always that way with the first of them,” said Mrs. Farrell. “You’ll be wanting to—”

  “Who’s in attendance around here? You or me?” It was The Doctor, his voice harsh, his face red.

  Mrs. Gaffney and Mrs. Betz nudged Mrs. Farrell, who left her mouth open to giggle quickly with them.

  “Just let me know when you want to take my job,” he said, and stalked to the end of the room to visit the patients behind the screens.

  The old women held their forefingers against their simpering lips. Now they would not even look at the ailing baby.

  “Anyone else for Room 4?” called Miss Riordan, out in the corridor.

  The eyes of the three old women frogged at the sight of the beautiful peroxide-blonde lady in a beautiful imitation-fur jacket. Everything about her seemed sweet and ripe as she handed over her green ticket and sat on the bench beside them. The three old women watched her pull down her silk stocking; she had only a little two-inch scratch on her fine, shapely leg and her skin was whiter than milk.

  But Mrs. Gaffney could no longer stare at her, for now The Doctor was pressing his finger into her highest vein and she must keep her eyes submissive on his face. He whispered to the nurse and then, without looking into Mrs. Gaffney’s submissive eyes, said, “You better quit staying out dancing all night, or that’ll never get right.”

  The three old women cackled with delight. Mrs. Betz kept a meek smile on her face as The Doctor examined her leg. When he came to Mrs. Farrell, he wrinkled up his nose. “Suppose you wash your leg off yourself,” he said. “Give the poor nurse a break. Just rub it up and down with soap and water. Ever heard of it?”

  This time the brays of laughter from the three old women were wilder than ever. Seeing him turn to the baby, all three of the old women tried to retard Miss Riordan’s manipulations of their leg wrappings so that they could remain to watch The Doctor and the, beautiful peroxide-blonde lady in the beautiful imitation-fur jacket. Mrs. Gaffney elbowed Mrs. Betz as The Doctor stood before the lady.

  “What’s wrong with you?” he said.

  She smiled invitingly up at him. “I tripped on the stairs—my land-lord doesn’t know enough to have safe stairs in his house—and it’s been bothering me.” She pointed a tapering white finger at the abrasion.

  He looked at it carefully before whispering his orders to Miss Riordan. Mrs. Gaffney started to edge out of her seat, disappointed, when the beautiful lady said, “Is it serious, Doctor?”

  “It hurt you, didn’t it?” he said, sarcastically.

  At the familiar tone, Mrs. Gaffney, Mrs. Farrell, and Mrs. Betz chuckled, but softly for fear of being sent away, now that their legs were wrapped.

  “Yes,” said the beautiful lady, “but I want to know what to tell my lawyer, in case—”

  “Oh, your lawyer?” said The Doctor, witheringly. “I see. You want to bring suit. Well, Madam, you can tell your lawyer that anyone who’s so careless as to trip on the stairs deserves more than the little scratch you have there.”

  The three old women lowered their heads, their soiled fingers at their mouths to curb their explosions of laughter. The beautiful lady’s eyes flashed. “I don’t see why you have to use that
tone of voice!” she exclaimed with resentment. “Just because it’s free is no reason why we can’t be treated like human beings!”

  The three old women waited breathlessly, their lips ready to stretch at his sally. Their waiting ears were met by silence. Their rheumy eyes saw The Doctor turn his back and regard the table of ointments and bandages. As he stood there, whistling softly, the three old women found themselves staring at one another, and not one was smiling. With gray tired faces, they rose together. At the door, their way was blocked by the man in white whom they called The Specialist Doctor.

  “Just the old friends I may want!” he cried in his ringing tones. He turned to The Doctor. “Are they varicose?”

  “All three, Chief,” said The Doctor.

  “Are they interesting? Good enough for my Friday-night lecture?” “I’ll show you their charts,” said The Doctor.

  The Specialist Doctor rubbed his hands. “How would you girls like to dance in my chorus Friday night?” he boomed cheerfully.

  The three old women looked at one another. The beautiful peroxide-blonde lady clack-clacked her high heels across the floor.

  “No,” said Mrs. Betz, heavily.

  “No,” said Mrs. Farrell, without looking up.

  “No,” said Mrs. Gaffney, plucking at the edge of her stained wrap “Just because it’s free don’t mean we aren’t human beings.”

  Then, with lowered heads and sombre faces, the three old women trudged out.

  The Testimony of Dr. Farnsworth

  FRANCIS LEO GOLDEN

  THE ambulance from Mercy Hospital glided into the tunneled passage-way and drew up with pin-point brakeage at the door of the Emergency Room.

  An orderly came out to help the chauffeur. The man was lifted from the stretcher on to the table. “Easy boys,” cautioned the interne, “be careful of his left side.”

  Ordinarily, Dr. Larry Wayne would not have been within two wards of Emergency. But the evening had horrible portents for him and he could not explain his inward jumpiness. It was peculiar the way that Delaine had brushed him off when he suggested the movies. Had she not consecrated Thursday nights to the attachment that had sprung up between them?

  The nurse looked up at his approach. The interne barely nodded. “What have you got, Ben?”

  “Tough, Dr. Wayne. Entire left side of the head bashed in.”

  Larry scrubbed up. “Hemorrhage?”

  The interne was cryptic. “Profuse. Zygomatic process may be exposed.”

  Dr. Wayne peered into the lesion. “H’m, not so good. The tempero-mandibular joint is completely crushed. Whoever slugged him wasn’t fooling. Better get the Chief down here. We’re in sacred territory—territory that’s his special province.”

  That was why the telephone was so insistent. The quiet of the red-brick and green stuccoed home atop Madison Avenue fought the challenge until, wearily, Dr. Mark A. Farnsworth lifted the receiver.

  “Larry thinks I should come down, eh? Very well, I shan’t be long.”

  Just as wearily he replaced the phone on its outswinging bracket. The house was cold. Through the casement windows he could see below—to the Hudson where the twinkling lights of the ferry-boats were furrowing a path toward New York.

  His finger touched the buzzer. Mrs. Grady bustled in. “If you’re going into the movies, Midge, leave word with Robert I’ll be at the Hospital.”

  “Shouldn’t have to be a-gettin’ up of a night like this.” She sniffed the air. “Yer work too hard as it is.”

  “My dear Midge,” he said roguishly, “you have served me well and faithfully these past thirty-odd years. And during that time you have, by your patient effort and deep devotion to duty, exemplified my constant preachment: that there is in every living creature an obscure but powerful impulse to active functioning. Life demands to be lived, Inac tion is foreign to the healthy organism. Only the dead can be really idle.”

  She looked up at his venerable figure. The long, blue jowls always so smoothly shaven; the closely-cropped, gray mustache that shet off ad-smoothly shaven; the closely-cropped, gray mustache that set off ad-No wonder the Judge always says yer right. He can’t understand yer!”

  Dr. Wayne was handling the transfusion when the Chief reached Emergency. “Call out the trauma, Larry, while I’m scrubbing.” Dr. Farnsworth cocked his ear toward the table.

  “I’ve ridden the old wagon for years,” said Larry, “and I’ve seen many a chap conked on the cocoanut, but this is a honey. The blow covers the parietal and temporal region.”

  “Extradural hemorrhage?”

  “Right, Chief. The middle meningeal artery.”

  “Pulse?”

  “Not so hot.”

  “Respiration?”

  “Slowing up.”

  The Chief accepted the towel from the student nurse. He beamed fatherly on the young man in white who in the seriousness of the case had forgotten his uneasiness of the early evening. Dr. Farnsworth knew the fibre of Wayne. He had carefully checked the progress of Larry since that day at Mrs. Gaudeau’s bedside when Wayne had insisted on a diagnosis of diabetes because of the presence of acetone on the breath. The Chief had been guiding him these past three years as his logical successor in the field of forensic medicine. Running to Court several times a week was tiring on legs that were fast losing their elasticity. Dr. Farnsworth enjoyed his days as the Expert Witness, but now the vascular demands on his system were imperative. He had to slow his pace. That was where Larry Wayne was so helpful.

  Wayne stepped aside. Dr. Farnsworth surveyed the field of injury. “I think transfusion has only been a reprieve, Larry. He has been dealt a savage blow. The fracture is compound.” His sensitive fingers located the depression of the fragments. “Extends to the base of the skull,” he said.

  Dr. Farnsworth spoke on. “He must have lain a while after the blow. Police case, I suppose?”

  Larry looked at the interne. “What’s the story, Ben?” The interne looked away. The nurse spoke through her gauze mask. “Ben doesn’t want to tell you, Dr. Wayne.”

  “What do you mean?”

  “Apartment on Commonwealth Avenue. This patient here is the party of the first part. There were two weeping dames in the room. Bending over this fellow when the police arrived was the lady pharmacist of our Hospital, Miss Delaine Kennedy, your dimpled, little red-head.”

  Larry looked at her querulously. “You don’t mean—”

  “Ask the Homicide Squad. They’re out in the reception room waiting to ask you a few questions.”

  “It just couldn’t be,” whispered Larry.

  Dr. Farnsworth glared at the nurse. “We usually save personalities until disposition has been made of the patient. Next time, Miss Howard, a little restraint, please!”

  “I’m sorry, Dr. Farnsworth.”

  Larry gazed at the man on the table. “I don’t know who he is. But Delaine is not the type who—” He could not finish the sentence.

  Dr. Farnsworth snapped him out of the mood. “If our Hospital pharmacist means that much to you, Larry, we’ll go radical. There are some cerebral concussions that might respond to venesection. You young fellows know little about it. But we can’t debate here. This man is going out—and going fast. And, evidently, Larry, two lives are at stake. This chap’s and our Miss Kennedy’s.”

  It was well after midnight before Dr. Farnsworth threw his gown and gloves into the hamper. Larry was disconsolate.

  “We’ve done all we could, boy. It was just hopeless. He must have been nailed by an exceptionally heavy instrument. What did the police say?”

  Larry looked up dejectedly. “A hammer. The fellow is a section foreman on the railroad. It was his own hammer. He was the boy-friend of Miss Kennedy’s sister. They have Delaine at Headquarters. I’m going down there now.”

  Dr. Farnsworth called out from the shower-room. “Better call Pawlston, Larry. He’s a good lawyer. You’ll probably need some bail, too. Get in touch with Townsend. He’ll rout the Fidelity man out of
bed.”

  Robert was sitting up for Dr. Farnsworth when he reached his citadel atop Madison Avenue. The brass kettle over the fireplace was whistling a happy tune. “I’ll have your tea in a moment, sir.” Robert wheeled the table over to the easy chair.

  “You didn’t have to wait up, Robert.”

  “Lor’ bless you, sir, if I didn’t, Mrs. Gray would pay me off in the mornin’. A spot of brandy in it, sir?”

  Dr. Farnsworth nodded. “And have you any cheese and crackers, Robert?”

  The man looked nervously to the door. “I’m under special orders, sir. She says cheese don’t agree with you and you’re not to have it.”

  “Nonsense, Robert. That old termagant is in a constant conspiracy to rob me of all my gustatory pleasures. Ah, well. I daresay she’s right. Never mind, Robert. I’ll just sip away.”

  “That will be all, sir?”

  “Yes, Robert. You may put out the lights, too. I have some meditation before I turn in.” The man’s steps went softly across the rug as he doused the lamps.

  “Robert?”

  “Yes, sir.”

  “What happens when you love two young people who love each other?”

  “Don’t know as I understand, sir.” The man paused at the door.

  “You’ve heard of Damon and Pythias, Robert? And Jonathan and David? Friendship, to endure, must be tested in the fires of suffering.”

  “Dare say you’re right, sir.”

  “I’ve got to think out a great problem, Robert. It involves that great crucible of physiology—the human mind. Friendship survives, Robert, only if we have faith.”

  “Good-night, sir. If you need more logs, you’ll find them in the box.”

  Robert closed the door. Dr. Farnsworth reached into the drawer for his queer-bowled pipe. He recalled the first day he met Miss Kennedy. He was passing the pharmacy in the basement of Mercy when he heard a contralto-ish voice call after him. There was vibrancy in the tones. Binet could have written a new chapter on its sonorescence. It was Wordsworthian “beauty born of murmuring sound.”