He folded the clipping and returned it, with the others, to Dr. Münsterberg. The doctor looked him squarely in the eye.
“The story of the subconscious mind can be told in three words,” he said. “There is none! . . . Well, I shall continue my investigations.”
He went out without shaking hands or saying good-bye. The young man watched through the living-room window until the cab drove away. Then he went into the room across the hall, taking the manuscript sheets with him.
On the far side of the room, on a massive oak bed, lay a frail, dark-haired girl, almost lost in the great expanse of sheets and counterpane. In the twilight only her outline was visible; she was a shadow on the bed. The young man lit one of the lamps on the dresser and brought it to the sick table. Her face leaped up at him like a flame. Her eyes were dark, but a fierce light shone from them. Her cheeks were bright red. Her oval face was like a miniature portrait come to life. Her face was worried, quick, yet the words came softly.
“Who was that man, Edgar? What did he want? You’re not going off with him somewhere, are you?”
The young man leaned down and kissed her forehead.
“Just a professor from Harvard,” he said. “He came all the way down here to expose me.”
She seemed relieved.
“No wonder his voice sounded so officious. What did he say?”
“Nothing much. He dumped all the books on the floor and called me a simpleton.”
The girl sighed.
“I declare I don’t know where people learn such bad manners,” she said. “What time is it? Mother ought to be bringing Hugh Lynn down soon.”
“They’re coming now. I hear Hugh Lynn banging that gate again. It’s five o’clock.”
He went to the front door and opened it. A little boy with fat cheeks grabbed him around the legs.
“Hey, Dad, the bears are after me again!” he cried.
The young man smiled at the lady who had come with the boy and waved a hand against the cold air that was blowing in on him.
“Go ’way, bears!” he said.
The little boy released his legs and walked into the hallway.
“Almost got me that time,” he said.
“What about your grandmother?” the young man said. “Aren’t you afraid the bears will get her?”
“No,” the boy said. “They don’t eat ladies. Only little boys.”
He struggled out of his coat and ran into the bedroom, shouting, “Muddie, the bears didn’t get me again!”
The lady who had come with him took off her black coat and black hat, revealing a black dress, high at the throat, and black hair brushed straight away from her forehead.
“How is Gertrude?” she said to the young man.
“About the same,” he answered.
They went into the bedroom together. The girl turned her head and smiled at her mother.
“Hugh Lynn says Aunt Kate made him some ginger cookies,” she said.
“Kate’s a fool,” her mother said. “Hugh Lynn’s like a ball of butter now and she keeps feeding him sweets. How do you feel?”
“All right, I reckon.”
“I’ll get you freshened up for dinner. Edgar, who was that who just drove away from here? Anyone I know?”
“No. Some professor from Harvard, down here to investigate me and show me up as a fake, same as they all try to do.”
“He spilled our books all over the floor and called Edgar a simpleton,” the girl said. Her voice was resentful.
“I noticed the mess as I came in. Well, you’ve got to expect that sort of thing from Yankees. They don’t know any better, poor souls.”
“I think they know what’s right as well as anyone else,” the girl said. “They just think they’re better than we are, that’s all.”
“Don’t excite yourself, child,” her mother said. “That white trash isn’t worth it. Edgar, why don’t you get some decent school to investigate you, like Washington and Lee? Harvard is just a pesthole of Republicans. You know that.”
“This man is a foreigner,” the young man said. “A German, I would say, from his accent.”
“Oh, well, that explains everything. Here, take Hugh Lynn out of here while I fuss around with Gertrude some.”
The young man and the boy went into the living room.
“Was that a bad man who was here, Dad?” he asked.
The young man lifted him high in the air and set him down by the fireplace.
“No, he wasn’t bad. Nobody is really bad. People just make mistakes. They don’t understand about God.”
“Do you understand about God, Dad?”
“Nobody really does. But I try to remember that God is the only One who really knows anything, and that He told me what He wants me to do in the Bible. So I try to do that.”
The little boy nodded.
“Let’s play bears,” he said. “You be the big bear who’s chasing me.”
—
Uncle Billy huddled in his cab outside the large house on South Walnut Street. In the living room of the house his fare sat, overcoat removed, listening to a mild, lovely woman, whose face became radiant as she told her story.
“When our daughter, Aime, was two,” Mrs. Dietrich began, “she caught grippe. After apparently recovering, she became afflicted with convulsions. She would fall down suddenly and her body would stiffen until it was rigid. Her mind stopped developing.
“We had all sorts and kinds of doctors. They did her no good, and after two years of futile experimentation we took her to Evansville, Indiana, to see Dr. Linthicum and Dr. Walker. They said it was a type of nervousness, and they treated her for months, but she didn’t improve.
“We brought her home. We had treatments here, but she got worse—twenty convulsions a day, sometimes. Her mind became a blank.
“We took her to Dr. Hoppe, in Cincinnati. He said she had a rare brain affliction that was invariably fatal.
“We brought her home to die. Then one of our local friends, Mr. Wilgus, told us about Edgar Cayce.”
Dr. Münsterberg interrupted. “This Mr. Wilgus . . . was he connected with the young man Cayce in any way?”
“Oh, no, except that he had always been interested in him. Mr. Wilgus is one of our most influential citizens. He used to hunt a good deal down on the Cayce property, and when Edgar was a boy Mr. Wilgus used to hire him as guide. One day a piece of shot glanced from a bird which Mr. Wilgus had brought down and struck the boy in the cheek. Mr. Wilgus felt so conscience-stricken that he always kept an eye on Edgar and tried to help him out.
“At any rate, Mr. Wilgus had readings, and on the advice of one of them went to Cincinnati for a minor operation, which he said vastly improved his health.
“He urged us to give the young man a chance—you understand, of course, that he was not in the business of giving readings at the time. This was in the summer of 1902, nearly ten years ago. Edgar was then working in Bowling Green, in a bookstore.”
Dr. Münsterberg nodded. “I understand,” he said. “We will proceed.”
“My husband asked him to come here, and he did. He wanted no other remuneration than the railroad ticket. He said the trip gave him a chance to see his girl. They were married the following year, I believe.
“He came with Mr. Al C. Layne, the local man who was at the time conducting the readings and giving some of the treatments.”
Dr. Münsterberg interrupted again. “He was a doctor, this Layne?”
“He was studying osteopathy at the time. Later he was graduated in the profession. His wife had a millinery shop in Hopkinsville and Edgar Cayce’s sister was employed there.”
“Mr. Layne put Cayce into a trance,” Dr. Münsterberg said. “Did either of the men examine the child?”
“No. They saw her, but I remember Edgar saying how he did
not see how it could help her. I remember how young and boyish he looked. I thought to myself, ‘How can this boy be of any help to us when the best doctors in the country have failed?’ You see, we knew his family and we knew Edgar. He had very little schooling.”
“You were skeptical, then?” Dr. Münsterberg asked.
“I hoped for a miracle, as any mother would.”
The doctor nodded.
“He removed his coat and loosened his tie and shoelaces. Then he lay on that sofa there”—she pointed and the doctor looked—“and apparently went to sleep. After a few minutes Mr. Layne spoke to him, telling him to have before him the body of our child, who was in the house, and to examine her and tell what was wrong with her body.
“I could not believe my ears when the sleeping man began to talk and said, ‘Yes, we have the body.’ His voice seemed different. It seemed—well, authoritative.”
Dr. Münsterberg nodded. “Exactly,” he said.
“He told us that on the day before she caught grippe she suffered an injury to her spine, and the grippe germs had settled in the spine, causing the attacks. He then told exactly where the lesion was and gave instructions for correcting it osteopathically.
“He could not possibly have known of the injury to her spine beforehand. I alone knew of it, and had not considered it serious—or even an injury.”
“But you are sure it happened?”
“The day before Aime caught grippe she was getting out of the carriage with me. She slipped and struck the end of her spine on the carriage step. She jumped up as if unhurt, and I thought no more of it.”
“The lesion was discovered where he described it?”
“Yes. Mr. Layne gave Aime a treatment that night. Next day we took another reading. He said the adjustment had not been properly made.”
“Very interesting,” Dr. Münsterberg said. “He told the man, Layne, his own conductor, that he had not carried out instructions?”
“Yes. Then he told what had been done that was wrong, and explained how to do it the right way. Layne tried again that morning. In the afternoon another reading was taken. Still the correction had not been made. Layne tried again. The next morning a reading was taken and the treatment was approved.
“Edgar returned to Bowling Green, and Mr. Layne, who lived in Hopkinsville, continued the treatments. He came every day for three weeks.
“At the end of the first week Aime’s mind began to clear up. She suddenly called the name of a doll of which she had been fond before the attacks occurred. A few days later she called me by name; then she called her father. Her mind picked up just where it had left off three years before, when she was only two.”
“She advanced rapidly then?”
“Quite rapidly. Soon she had the mind of a normal five-year-old. After the three weeks of treatment we had a check reading. At that time he said the condition had been removed. There was never any more trouble. Aime today is a normal girl of fifteen. She’ll be finished with her lessons in a few minutes and I will bring her in.”
“Yes, yes. I would like to see her.”
“I don’t know what this strange ability is,” Mrs. Dietrich went on. “We have only our own experience and the experiences of our friends by which to judge. But so far as we know it always works. Edgar Cayce is certainly no charlatan. He’s one of the pillars of the Christian Church, and so far as anyone knows he has never taken advantage of anyone. It’s just the other way around. People are always taking advantage of his good nature and his generosity.”
“Of course,” the doctor said, “of course.”
He answered automatically, as if he had not quite heard what she was saying but was aware that she had stopped.
He was staring past her, dreamily, at the sofa on which, ten years before, the young man he had visited that afternoon had gone to sleep.
—
The man with the mustache paused to measure the distance between himself and the cuspidor. Accurately he spat into it. His listeners, grouped around him in the foyer of the Latham Hotel, waited respectfully.
Leslie Cayce went on with his story.
“Well, you can see for yourself that he was a normal boy, except in school. There, he was dull. No doubt about it. He dreamed too much; all his teachers told me that. When he was twelve years old he was still in the third reader.
“That was in the spring of 1889. My brother Lucian was teaching the school. One afternoon Lucian met me and told me he had asked Edgar to spell ‘cabin’ and the boy couldn’t do it. ‘I hope I did right, Leslie,’ Lucian said. ‘I made him stay after school and write the word five hundred times on the blackboard.’ ‘Do as you like, Lucian,’ I said. ‘You’re the teacher.’
“Well, I felt mighty badly, mighty badly. Maybe it’s my own fault, I thought. Maybe I don’t spend enough time with the boy. Maybe he just needs somebody to bring him out properly, you know?
“So that night I sat down with him and we took hold of the spelling lesson. Well, there didn’t seem to be anything I could do to get the lesson into his head. I’d think he had it; then when I’d close the book and ask him to spell the words, he couldn’t do it.
“First thing I knew it was nearly eleven o’clock. The boy was tired, I knew, so I told him he might better go to bed. ‘Just let me rest for five minutes,’ he said to me, ‘and I’ll know the lesson.’ ‘All right,’ I said, just to humor him, you know.
“Well, I went into the kitchen to get a glass of water. I puttered around with a few things, then went back to the living room. There he was, asleep in the chair, with the spelling book for a pillow. I laughed and gave him a shake. ‘Wake up, Old Man,’ I said, ‘time for bed.’
“Well, he woke up right off, and said, ‘Ask me the lesson. I know it now.’ I was sure he didn’t, but to humor him I asked him a few words.
“Well, dogged if he couldn’t spell them. I asked him some more and he knew them. ‘Ask me anything in the book,’ he said. He seemed all excited. So I skipped through the book, and no matter what I asked, he knew it.
“Then he began telling me what other words were on the page with the words I asked him, and what the pictures were on the pages, and the numbers of the pages. He knew that book as if he had it in his hands looking at it.”
Dr. Münsterberg leaned forward. “What was his explanation?” he asked. “What did he say had caused this?”
“All I could ever get out of him was that he suddenly felt that night that if he slept a little on the book he would know the lesson. And he did.
“After that he slept on all his lessons, and he knew them all perfectly. He began to hop grades like he was skipping rope.”
“His memory of these lessons, did it persist?” Dr. Münsterberg asked.
“Never forgot any of them. Even to this day he remembers them.”
“Very interesting. And you recall no peculiar circumstances or accidents at his birth, or in his youth, before this?”
“Not a thing, except milk on the breasts.”
“Milk on the breasts?”
“Cried for a month after he was born. Nobody knew what the trouble was. Then old Patsy Cayce—black woman at my father’s house, used to be a slave—she came over and asked my wife for a needle. ‘Boil it up first,’ she said. Then she took it and pricked a little hole in the nipple of each breast, and dogged if milk didn’t come from them. After that the baby never cried much at all.”
“I have heard of that,” Dr. Münsterberg said, “in my medical studies.”
“Are you a medical doctor as well as a Ph.D.?” Dr. Ketchum asked. He was a smiling, quick-moving, bright-eyed man, in his middle thirties.
“Oh, yes,” Dr. Münsterberg said, “I have a medical degree. I studied both at Leipzig and Heidelberg.”
“Then I may tell you of some of my cases?” Dr. Ketchum said.
“I am most interes
ted to know what school of medicine he endorses,” Dr. Münsterberg said. “For the Dietrich child he prescribed osteopathy.”
“He uses all schools,” Dr. Ketchum said, “and often for the same case. He sometimes gives osteopathy along with electrical treatments, massage, diet, and compounds to be taken internally.
“He sometimes calls for herbs that are hard to get or for a medicine we haven’t heard about. Sometimes it’s just come on the market, sometimes it’s been off the market for a while.”
“Always he seems to know everything,” Dr. Münsterberg said. “You would say that he was . . . quoting from a universal mind, perhaps?”
Dr. Ketchum nodded sagely. “I have often thought so,” he said. “In one of the earliest readings I conducted a preparation was given called ‘Oil of Smoke.’ I had never heard of it, nor had any of our local druggists. It was not listed in the pharmaceutical catalogues. We took another reading and asked where it could be found. The name of a drugstore in Louisville was given. I wired there, asking for the preparation. The manager wired back saying he did not have it and had never heard of it.”
“This was given for what?” Dr. Münsterberg asked.
“For a boy with a very obstinate leg sore,” Dr. Ketchum said.
“We took a third reading. This time a shelf in the back of the Louisville drugstore was named. There, behind another preparation—which was named—would be found a bottle of ‘Oil of Smoke,’ so the reading said. I wired the information to the manager of the Louisville store. He wired me back, ‘Found it.’ The bottle arrived in a few days. It was old. The label was faded. The company which put it up had gone out of business. But it was just what he said it was, ‘Oil of Smoke.’”
“Very interesting,” Dr. Münsterberg said. “Very interesting.”
Leslie Cayce cleared his throat and spat again into the cuspidor.
“I remember a case,” he said, “when the boy was in Bowling Green . . .”
—
The young man sat at the kitchen table of the Cayce home on West Seventh Street, looking miserable, staring into the cup of coffee set before him. His mother, a gray-haired woman with a tired, pretty face, sat opposite him, looking at his downcast head and bent shoulders.
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