Little Red Doctor

“ Deeply as he admired the clever surgeon, much as he hoped for the friendship of the highly intelligent man, [89] he was not long in finding out that Red had not been built for a persuader in public places. If the red-headed doctor had been confronted with a desperate case of emergency surgery, he could have flung off his coat, rolled up his sleeves, commandeered an amateur nurse for an assistant, and achieved a victory as brilliant as it was spectacular. ”

“ The day after, a new ornament appeared;—a pair of andirons, painted scarlet, and a hollowed out log across them filled with yellow nasturtiums. Mrs. Pitman pointed it out to me delightedly.
“Just like a real fire!” she said. “Do you see, Irene? The doctor is quite a landscape gardener, isn’t he?” ”

“ As for that, Doctor—to right-about-face with my defense—why shouldn’t one be a spendthrift with his life? You’re one yourself.”
“Not I. I practice my profession, and mine only. You practice—about four. Last week I caught you playing nurse to a family of small children while their mother went shopping.” Red held up a silencing hand at Black’s laughter. “Yes, I know she hadn’t been out for a month. That same night you made a speech somewhere—and sat up the rest of the night with Cary Ray—— Oh, yes—I know he’s improved a lot lately, but he got restless that night and you stuck by. ”

“ He does look splendid and capable, doesn't he—for all he's so burly and homely? And the other men all feel honoured to be here with him; even Doctor Van Horn, who's always so impressed with himself.”
“They seem to be having a good time. And they're eating as if they never saw food before. It's a success—as much as it can be without the host himself. Oh, why doesn't Red come?”
“He wouldn't desert a patient in a crisis for a dozen dinners.” ”

“ Doctor, I never could bear to see any soft, tender, young thing in trouble. If it's nothing but a little bird that has fallen out of its warm nest, or a lamb slipped down among the cliffs, I feel as if I could risk my life to put them back again in some safe place. Yes, and I have done it scores of times, when I dared not let my poor mother know. Well, there stood mam'zelle, pale and trembling, with the tears ready to fall in her eyes; just such a soft, poor, tender soul as my little wife used to be. You remember my little wife, Dr. Martin? ”

“ The Doctor brushed his hand across his eyes, and swallowed a globule; and, before the boy knew what he was about, had in his benevolence thrust another between Leonard's quivering lips.
A knock was heard at the door.
"Ha! that's my great patient," cried the Doctor, recovering his self-possession—"must see him. A chronic case—excellent patient—tic, sir, tic. Puzzling and interesting. If I could take that tic with me, I should ask nothing more from Heaven. Call again on Monday; I may have something to tell you then as to yourself. The little girl can't stay with you—wrong and nonsensical. ”

“ A high standup collar of antique build and a black stock give the finishing touch to a picture whose “old-timiness,” as the Americans say, would have thrown a Boston novelist into convulsions of ecstasy.
The doctor this morning is combining business with pleasure. He has to visit the widow Gubbins, who fell down the cornhouse steps the week before, and broke her leg. But he has had word sent to him that there is a red fox in the pine wood behind the parsonage, hard by the Gubbins domicile. I need not say the saddle-bags and the medicine bottles are there ”

“ The doctor nodded his head toward two little girls in fresh white dresses who stood on the side-walk anxiously watching his approach. There was earnest interest in the blue eyes and the black. Near the little girls stood a white-headed toddler of about two years and by his side a boy seven or eight years old.
“Mr. Blank,” called the blue-eyed little girl—all men with or without titles are Mr. to little folks;—the doctor stopped his horse.
“Well, what is it, Mamie?”
“I want you to bring my mamma a baby.” ”

“ They have all come in by this time, and scuffle and growl and snap around the board as the food is thrown to them.
The knowing ones take advantage of such an evening as this to assert, with more than usual assurance, their right of entry to the house. The doctor has had his supper, and hopes that no ominous shout from [301] the darkness will, for this night at any rate, call him to some distant sick-bed. He has drawn up his one-armed rocking-chair to the parlor fire, and by the kerosene lamp is poring over the last oration on free trade by that grand old Virginia gentleman and senator, Mr. ”

“ An instant of silence, then, shaking from head to foot, the tears fairly starting from his eyes, unable for the moment to speak at all, laughing himself to the verge of apoplexy, the Doctor motions the youngster from the foot to the head of the class, and it is a full minute before order is restored and the laughter of the First Latin subsides. Even then, every little while some boy bursts out into a chuckle of merriment, and Hoover glares at him with new malevolence. Every little while the Doctor settles back in his chair and shakes anew. ”

“ Doctor, would you mind standing in the hall till we get to our rooms—”
“Like the White Knight and Alice,” laughed Clara. “You remember he asked Alice to wait till he was out of sight, because her presence would cheer him—”
“Clara, you saucy girl!” cried her mother. “Doctor, I will send Bridget down to make up a bed on the lounge. Good night,” she called again, as she reached her room.
“Don’t treat the poor burglars too cruelly, Dr. Pennington,” cried Clara, looking over the baluster, and then with a laugh she vanished. ”

“ The Doctor says she is a woman possessed of a very good mind, and has been a great reader, but has never had children to develop her affection and modify her character.
When we had disposed of the lunch, and Frank had given his directions to his patient, we prepared to take leave, receiving one or two extra kisses, and a good squeeze of the Doctor's arm for his part.
"Bring her here when you come again," said the old lady, pointing to me. "She's a pootty critter." Aunt Susy is a little deaf, and seems to think everybody else so. ”

“ And the Doctor, rising from his attitude of prayer, and going toward the little window of his study to arrange it for the night, sees a slight figure in black pacing up and down upon the opposite side of the way, and looking up from time to time to the light that is burning in the window of Adèle. He knows on the instant who it must be, and fears more than ever the possible influence which this strange woman, who is so persistent in her attention, may have upon the heart of the girl. ”

“ The tall, soldierly young figure, with the sunburnt, handsome face, the gay, amorous, challenging glance, the red mouth that laughed under the golden moustache, and the shallow brain under the close-clipped golden curls, or the black-haired, hulking Doctor, with the square-cut, powerful face and the stern blue eyes, the man of heart and intellect, whose indomitable, patient tenderness had led a stricken girl back from the borders of that strange land where the brain-sick dwell, to wholesome consciousness of common things, and renewed healthfulness of body and of mind? ”

“ We never paid any attention to her, of course, but got down on both sides of the bed and went to praying as loud and earnest as we could, so as to drown the groaning. Then Kate said she didn’t want to be prayed for nohow, that what she wanted was the doctor. Mary Alice told her she was plumb out of her senses, and didn’t know what she was talking about. And Kate said, no such a thing; that she was a mighty sick woman, but she was in her right mind, and knew what she wanted, and that it was the doctor. She said the doctor was the only friend she had on earth. ”

“ The Doctor took snuff with everybody, chatted with everybody, laughed, danced, made jokes, played whist, did everything, and was everywhere. To these pursuits, multifarious as they were, the little Doctor added a more important one than any—he was indefatigable in paying the most unremitting and devoted attention to a little old widow, whose rich dress and profusion of ornament bespoke her a most desirable addition to a limited income.
Upon the Doctor, and the widow, the eyes of both Mr. Tupman and his companion had been fixed for some time, when the stranger broke silence. ”

“ And so the Doctor, at the beginning of the next half-year, looked out the best of the new boys, and separated you and East, and put the young boy into your study, in the hope that when you had somebody to lean on you, you would begin to stand a little steadier yourself, and get manliness and thoughtfulness. And I can assure you he has watched the experiment ever since with great satisfaction. Ah! not one of you boys will ever know the anxiety you have given him, or the care with which he has watched over every step in your school lives. ”

“ To be sure Dr Rider was at hand, who felt a little agitated about it, and was conscious of the wonderful opening, and was very ready to answer, "I am here;" but a young doctor is different from an old one, and a living man all in commonplace health and comfort is not to be compared with a dead one, on the morning at least of his sudden ending. ”

“ Already the doctor's house was invested by the uncanny forces marshalled by Antony Ferrara against them. The distinguished patients, who daily flocked to the consulting-room of the celebrated specialist, who witnessed his perfect self-possession and took comfort from his confidence, knowing it for the confidence of strength, little suspected that a greater ill than any flesh is heir to, assailed the doctor to whom they came for healing. ”

“ He would take nothing—neither medicine, syrup, nor beef-tea.
"Is there anything that you would like?" they asked him.
"No," he answered, "nothing."
"This must be remedied," the doctor said. "This torpor is alarming. You are his parents, and you know him best. Try to discover what will interest and amuse him." And the doctor went away.
"'THIS MUST BE REMEDIED,' THE DOCTOR SAID."
To amuse him! True, they knew him well, their little Francis. ”

“ And then—Well, Merle tells me it was I that tore the thing away from the little bundle of clothes beneath it, and carried our little girl home.
A doctor is often a good refuge in trouble, but though he may sew up a ragged tear in a child’s throat ever so neatly, it doesn’t necessarily follow that it will help much. ”

“ The doctor bowed and withdrew with marked respect; the nurse lingered a moment, during which both of the sick men lay equally quiet and death-like; then she also stepped aside. The stranger was left standing between the two beds.
Soon the sensitive ears of the watchful one heard these words: “Your little daughter sends her love.”
Opening his eyes a trifle, he saw the stranger bending over the other’s pillow. A sigh which was not new to his ears rose from his dying companion, at sound of which the stranger added softly:
“You fear to leave the child, but God is merciful. ”

“ For instance, a dapper glossy-black hen had a topknot like a high silk hat, and grotesquely long wing feathers resembling a frock coat, which gave her such a look of masquerading in male attire that “Dr. Mary Walker” seemed the only possible name for her. “The Doctor” is an impulsive, self-willed creature. ”

“ It seemed a long time, Doctor, especially as the man's strength was so great that after his first mad rush his mind grappled with the situation and he lay without a moan, without a struggle. I assisted the surgeon in the little that it was possible to do for the poor fellow, and it was while we were bathing his face that I solved the problem of his identity. ”

“ To look at the creature thus flashing those shining eyes, not without a smile lurking in their depths, upon him—to see the triumphant, undaunted, undoubting youthfulness which never dreamt of failure—to note that pretty anxiety, the look which might have become a bride in her first troubles "playing at housekeeping," and think how desperate was the position she had assumed, how dreary the burden she had taken upon her—was almost too much for the doctor's self-control. He did not know whether to admire the little heroine as half-divine, or to turn from her as half-crazy. ”

“ A physician does not hold the issues of life and death; he can only assist nature, as the patient may by a cheerful view of his case. This is not your old complaint; you have taken cold, and have considerable fever; but I think it is a very hopeful case."
The return of Katy interrupted the conversation; but the doctor's opinion was immediately imparted to her, and it sent a thrill of joy to her heart.
"I was low-spirited this morning, Katy," said Mrs. Redburn, when the physician had gone. ”

“ It was not long before the solid trot of Caustic, the old bay horse, and the crashing of the gravel under the wheels, gave notice that the physician was driving up the avenue.
The old Doctor was a model for visiting practitioners. He always came into the sick-room with a quiet, cheerful look, as if he had a consciousness that he was bringing some sure relief with him. The way a patient snatches his first look at his doctor's face, to see whether he is doomed, whether he is reprieved, whether he is unconditionally pardoned, has really something terrible about it. ”

“ Will explain on arrival.”
“Spend the night? Will explain on arrival? What on earth can the woman mean?” cried the doctor. “Can any of the family be sick, I wonder? If so, why should she send for me, when there must be other doctors near by? No: that can’t be the reason.” But, as he could think of no other explanation, he accepted this one as the most plausible, and decided to take his case of medicines with him to Marston. Looking at his watch, he saw that he could barely catch the train, and hastily began to pack his handbag. ”