Doc Peets

“ Us old-timers, we’re used to thinking of doctors as highly trained professionals—all that pre-Bitchun med-school stuff, long internships, anatomy drills... Truth is, the average doc today gets more training in bedside manner than bioscience. ‘Doctor’ Pete is a technician, not an MD, not the way you and I mean it. Anyone with the kind of knowledge you’re looking for is working as a historical researcher, not a doctor.
“But that’s not the illusion. The doc is supposed to be the authority on medical matters, even though he’s only got one trick: restore from backup. ”

“ And Pete, having got the white doctor from Kulanche, thought he'd cinch matters by getting the medicine man, too. At that, I guess one would of been about as useful as the other, the Kulanche doctor knowing more about anthrax and blackleg than he did about sick Injin babies.
"The medicine man sees right off how scared Pete is for his kid and thinks here's a chance to make some big money. He looks at the little patient and says yes, he can cure him, sure; but it'll be a hard job and he can't undertake it unless Pete comes through with forty dollars and his span of mules. ”

“ And he wondered if he would ever see Doris Gray again after he left the hospital.
CHAPTER XXXIX A PUZZLE GAME
Dr. Andover, brisk and professionally cheerful, was telling Pete that so far as he was concerned he could not do anything more for him, except to advise him to be careful about lifting or straining—to take it easy for at least a month—and to do no hard riding until the incision was thoroughly healed. "You'll know when you are really fit," he said, smiling, "because your back will tell you better than I can. You're a mighty fortunate young man!"
"You sure fixed me up fine, Doc. ”

“ He don' git along wid nobody, nohow, Mr. Peth don't."
"He's been with Captain Jarrow a long time, hasn't [94] he?"
Doc turned his head sidewise and looked at Trask, and then looked out into the main cabin, as if to make sure no one was listening before he went on.
"A lion an' a lamb," he said, in a scared whisper.
"And Peth's the lion?"
"Yassir, you got it. Peth, he'd fight with his own gran'mother, that man. Argue en argue en argue. He ain't fixin' to hurt nobody when he talks, but when he stops talkin'—excuse me!" ”

“ Here ruled Dong Ling, the Chinese cook, and Pete.
Pete was—indeed, it is hard telling what Pete was. He said he was the butler; and he looked the part when he answered the bell at the great front door. But at other times, when he swept a room, or dusted Master William's curios, he looked—like nothing so much as what he was: a fussy, faithful old man, who expected to die in the service he had entered fifty years before as a lad. ”

“ Perhaps it does folks no harm to be afraid of something, Lars Peter! But give him the mixture at once."
"I'd rather fetch the doctor," said Lars Peter, reluctantly giving the child the medicine. He would have preferred to throw it out of the window—and the inn-keeper with it.
"Ay, so I understood, but I thought I'd just have a talk to you first. What good's a doctor? It's only an expense, and he can't change God's purpose. Poor people should learn to save."
"Ay, of course, when a man's poor he must take things as they come!" Lars Peter laughed bitterly. ”

“ Yet Pete, with all his bellow, was the exact antithesis of his brother. He had spent years before the mast and had been rated an excellent sailor, before he drifted into Marseilles and became the understudy of unscrupulous Joe. He was as slow of wit as the seamen who quailed before his wife’s bleary eye—and as for tact! The only influence or coercion which Pete could bring to bear on those of his fellow-men who did not heed the roar of his mighty voice were his no less mighty fists. ”

“ The nearest to the patient was her sister, who touched the pit of her stomach; at the other end was Dr. Petetin, who whispered to his fingers, and was heard. A cane was then introduced as part of the circuit—the patient still heard; but if a stick of sealing-wax, or a glass rod, was substituted for it, or if one of the party wore silk gloves, the patient could no longer hear Dr. Petetin. Without close observation, what is physical in the phenomena which have thus engaged us is liable to be overlooked; and the bystander may class them as examples of lucidity, which they are not. ”

“ Petrie, will appreciate. In the event of clumsy surgery, death may supervene; failing this, permanent hemiplegia—or"—the film lifted from the green eyes, and for a moment they flickered with transient horror—"idiocy! Any one of three of my pupils whom I might name could perform this operation with ease, but their services are not available. Only one English surgeon occurred to me in this connection, and you, Sir Baldwin"—again he slowly turned his head— "were he. Dr. Petrie will act as anaesthetist, and, your duties completed, you shall return to your home richer by the amount stipulated. ”

“ His eyes fell, shifted, could not meet Hugh’s, who watched with unsteady breathing and white lips.
“Your face is as smooth as a girl’s, Pete. What a wide, low forehead and crisp, short hair; it ripples back from your temples. You must be a pretty boy! A neat nose and a round, hard chin and—oh, Pete, Pete! I believe you have a dimple. How absurd! A great, long dimple like a slit in your right cheek. Why do you blink your eyes so? They’re long eyes, with thick, short lashes. ”

“ Oh, he told me all about it up in his office one day —how he was going to get Pete off. Ain't lawyers the goods, though! And doctors? This J.W. Snyder had a doctor ready to swear that Pete was nutty when he fired the shot, even if not before nor after. When I was a kid at school, back in Fredonia, New York State, we used to have debates about which does the most harm—fire or water? Nowadays I bet they'd have: Which does the most harm—doctors or lawyers? ”

“ That first and unforgettable year on the homestead was the happiest year of Pete's life. Intensely active, tireless, and resourceful—as are most youngsters raised in the West—he learned to milk the tame cow, manipulate the hay-rake, distinguish potato-vines from weeds and hoe accordingly, and through observation and Annersley's thrifty example, take care of his clothing and few effects. The old man taught Pete to read and to write his own name—a painful process, for Young Pete cared nothing for that sort of education and suffered only that he might please his venerable partner. ”

“ Thorn, why not anyone else? provided a counter-impression was given, vivid and forcible enough to convince the patient in spite of himself.
That afternoon found the Doctor, Miss Winchester, Adele and Paul, putting their heads together, mysteriously cogitating; [80] evidently a plot on hand to give Mr. Onset another new idea.
“It can do no harm and may do the poor fellow some good,” whispered the optimistic Doctor. “Adele, your father will find it out soon enough himself, so we needn’t bother him just yet. In case of a rumpus the Professor will be just the one to fall back upon. ”

“ I say when this Cat Sir Hierome, had burnt his paw, by reaching the Apes Chestnuts out of the hot Embers, Worsly out of pity resumes his primitive trade to plaister him, wherein also others joyn, that they might by some means or other fave themselves from being publickly laught at, and to perswade the world that they could not be outwitted by Doctor Petty: the latter of which, they indeed needed not to have troubled themselves withall, Doctor Petty having been alwaies forward to do them right, as to the point of their wits ”

“ Two of us put the body on the stretcher and carried it to the nearest first-aid post, where the doctor took an official record of Pete's name, number, rank, and regiment from his identity disk, this to be used in the Casualty Lists and notification to his family.
We left Pete there, but it broke our hearts to do so. The doctor informed us that we could bury him the next morning. That afternoon, five of the boys of our section, myself included, went to the little ruined village in the rear and from the deserted gardens of the French chateaux gathered grass and flowers. ”

“ Nor will it do for you to see me all the way to that car, or we shall have a dozen girls talking. If you will meet me somewhere," she added, looking at Peter, "I'll risk it. I'll have a headache and not go to first dinner; then the first will think I'm at the second, and the second at the first. Besides, I've no duty, and the hospital's not like Havre. It's all spread out in huts and tents, and it's easy enough to get in. Last, but not least, it's Colonial, and the matron is a brick. ”

“ He seemed, however, perfectly at home in this border town, and I noted that the most hard-boiled [27] and toughest men in the crowd treated him with marked respect and deference.
Pete was a wilderness fop and a dandy, and evidently was as careful of his clothes as a West Point cadet. In dress he affected the old-fashioned picturesque garb of the mountains. His appearance filled me with wonder and admiration; he stood six feet two or three inches in his moccasins, straight as an arrow and lithe as a cat. ”

“ There were women in plenty. The staff had been augmented by visitors from most of the other hospitals in the town, and there was a fair sprinkling of W.A.A.C.'s, Y.M.C.A. workers, and so on, in addition. Jack Donovan and Peter were a little late, and arrived at the time an exceedingly popular subaltern was holding the stage amid roars of laughter. ”

“ You'll have plenty of time to get ready. I should advise you to write for some books, and begin to read up a little, for I expect you are a bit rusty, like the rest of us. And I shall hope to have you back lecturing in this Army area before long."
So to speak, bowed out, Peter made his way home. In the Rue de Paris Julie passed him, sitting with a couple of other nurses in an ambulance motor-lorry, and she waved her hand to him. The incident served to depress him still more, and he was a bit petulant as he entered the mess. He flung his cap on the table, and threw himself into a chair. ”

“ Pete winced under her touch and puckered his brows. “Because he’s such a kid, I guess. He’s always fretting after the moon.”
“Don’t you ever get angry with him, Pete? He does treat you shameful sometimes.”
“N-no. Not often. He’s always sorry and ashamed afterward. He’d like to be as kind as God. I believe if he could only fool us into thinking he was God, he could act like Him—ouch, Bella! Go easy.”
“You’re an awful smart boy, Pete. It’s a sin you’ve never had any schooling.”
“Schooling! Gosh! I’ve had all the schooling I could digest. Hugh beat it into me. ”

“ It ain't for me to poke no fun at Pete's looks. There's a place where a humarious turn of mind orter stop. Pete's looks was too serious for any man to get comic about. It appeared as if his features had been blowed on to his face by a gale of wind; his whiskers had a horrified expression, like they'd made their escape if they hadn't been fastened on, and he was double-jointed in every point of the compass. When he stood up straight he give you more the impression of sittin' down then a man sick a-bed could. I dunno how it come, but everything old Pete looked like, seemed precisely the reverse. ”

“ But he was under the necessity, owing to his senior’s remaining so long in office, of continuing as assistant-surgeon for the long period of twenty-eight years.
The young surgeon soon began to put his original powers in evidence by starting as a lecturer. Mr. Pott had for years given a course of lectures on surgery, but no other lectures had been delivered, and the medical school of St. Bartholomew’s must be regarded as owing its establishment to Abernethy. To be the life and soul of a new school is enough for any man [Pg 229] in his maturest years ”

“ Peter's, the Albany and the Child's Hospitals, the Orphan Asylums and the like, together with his ever-increasing private practice, compelled him to relinquish his connection with the Asylum at Utica. On the reorganization of the faculty of the Albany Medical College, in 1876, he accepted the chair of diseases of the nervous system, which he filled up to the time of his death. ”

“ And I got to tell you Pete is crazy about babies. Always has been. Thirty years ago, when my own baby hadn't been but a few weeks born, Lysander John had to be in Red Gap with a smashed leg and arm, and I was here alone with Pete for two months of one winter. Say, he was better than any trained nurse with both of us, even if my papoose was only a girl one! Folks used to wonder afterward if I hadn't been afraid with just Pete round. Good lands! If they'd ever seen him cuddle that mite and sing songs to it in Injin about the rain and the grass! ”

“ The Doctor looked round and saw half of his pupils reclining in various involuntary attitudes on the ground, whilst ten or twelve others put their stilts against the wall and tried in vain to get on them.
"Oh, very well, Peele," he said; "don't let your zeal carry you too far. It will be awkward if half of you are laid up with broken arms and legs." And the Doctor continued his way to a neighboring wood, there to meditate on particles.
Polyhymnia could not understand this sudden craze for stilts. She pressed Peele for an explanation. ”

“ As he was finishing his examination, the stranger returned, accompanied by the druggist and a physician who had chanced to be in the drug store.
Peret rose to his feet and stepped back to make room for the doctor.
“What’s the trouble?” asked Dr. Sprague, a large, swarthy-faced man with a gray Vandyke beard.
“Murder, I’m afraid,” replied Peret, pointing at Berjet’s motionless body.
Dr. Sprague bent over the inert form of the scientist and made a brief examination.
“Yes,” he said gravely, “he is beyond human aid.” ”