Читать книгу The Story of a Doctor's Telephone—Told by His Wife - Firebaugh Ellen M. - Страница 4

One Monday evening the doctor and his wife sat chatting cosily before the fire. In the midst of their conversation, Mary looked up suddenly. “I had a queer little experience this morning, John, I want to tell you about it.”

“Tell ahead,” said John, propping his slippered feet up on the fender.

“Well, I got my pen and paper ready to write a letter to Mrs. E. I wanted to write it yesterday afternoon and tell her some little household incidents just while they were taking place, as she is fond of the doings and sayings of boys and they are more realistic if reported in the present tense. But I couldn't get at it yesterday afternoon. When I started to write it this morning it occurred to me to date the letter Sunday afternoon and write it just as I would have done yesterday – so I did. When I had got it half done or more I heard the door-bell and going to open it I saw through the large glass – ”

Ting-a-ling-ling-ling. Ting-a-ling-ling-ling.

The doctor went to the 'phone.

“Yes.”

“Yes.”

“Where do you live?”

“I'll be right down.”

He went back, hastily removed his slippers and began putting on his shoes. Mary saw that he had clean forgotten her story. Very well. It wouldn't take more than a minute to finish it – there would be plenty of time while he was getting into his shoes – but if he was not enough interested to refer to it again she certainly would not. In a few minutes the doctor was gone and Mary went to bed. An hour or two later his voice broke in upon her slumber. “Back again,” he said as he settled down upon his pillow. In a minute he exclaimed, “Say, Mary, what was the rest of that story?”

“O, don't get me roused up. I'm so sleepy,” she said drowsily.

“Well, I'd like to hear it.” The interest in her little story which had not been exhibited at the proper time was being exhibited now with a vengeance. She sighed and said, “I can't think of it now – tell you in the morning. Good night,” and turned away.

When morning came and they were both awake, the doctor again referred to the unfinished story.

“It's lost interest for me. It wasn't a story to start with, just a little incident that seemed odd – ”

“Well, let's have it.”

“Well, then,” said Mary, “I was writing away when the door-bell rang. I went to open it and saw through the glass the laundry man – ”

Ting-a-ling-ling-ling. Ting-a-ling-ling-ling. Ting-a-ling-ling-ling.

“Go on!” exclaimed her husband, hurriedly, “I'll wait till you finish.”

“I'll not race through a story in any such John Gilpin style,” said Mary, tartly. “Go, John!”

The doctor arose and went.

“No.”

“I think not.”

“Has she any fever?”

“All right, I'll be down in a little bit.”

Then he went back. “Now you can finish,” he said.

“Finis is written here,” said Mary. “Don't say story to me again!” So Mary's story remained unfinished.

But a few days later, when she was in the buggy with her husband she relented. “Now that the 'phone can't cut me short, John, I will finish about the odd incident just because you wanted to know. But it will fall pretty flat now, as all things do with too many preliminary flourishes.”

“Go on,” said the doctor.

“Well, you know I told you I dated my letter back to Sunday afternoon, and was writing away when I heard the door-bell ring. As I started toward the door I saw the laundry man standing there. I was conscious of looking at him in astonishment and in a dazed sort of way as I walked across the large room to open the door. I am sure he must have noticed the expression on my face. When I opened the door he asked as he always does, ‘Any laundry?’”

“‘Any laundry today?’ The words were on my tongue's end but I stopped them in time. You see it was really Sunday to me, so deep into the spirit of it had I got, and it was with a little shock that I came back to Monday again in time to answer the man in a rational way. And now my story's done.”

“Not a bad one, either,” said John, “I'm glad you condescended to finish it.”

The doctor came home at ten o'clock and went straight to bed and to sleep. At eleven he was called.

“What is it?” he asked gruffly.

“It's time for Silas to take his medicine and he won't do it.”

“Won't, eh?”

“No, he vows he won't.”

“Well, let him alone for a while and then try again.”

About one came another ring.

“We've both been asleep, Doctor, but I've been up fifteen minutes trying to get him to take his medicine and he won't do it. He says it's too damned nasty and that he don't need it anyhow.”

“Tell him I say he's a mighty good farmer, but a devilish poor doctor.”

“I don't know what to do. I can't make him take it.”

“You'll have to let him alone for awhile I guess, maybe he'll change his mind after awhile.”

At three o'clock the doctor was again at the telephone.

“Doctor, he just will not take it,” the voice was now quite distressed. “I can't manage him at all.”

“You ought to manage him. What's a wife for? Well, go to bed and don't bother him or me any more tonight.”

But early next morning Silas' wife telephoned again.

“I thought I ought to tell you that he hasn't taken it yet.”

“He'll get well anyway. Don't be a bit uneasy about him,” said the doctor, laughing, as he rung off.

“It's time to go, John.”

Mary was drawing on her gloves. She looked at her moveless husband as he sat before the crackling blaze in the big fireplace.

“This is better than church,” he made reply.

“But you promised you would go tonight. Come on.”

“It isn't time yet, is it?”

“The last bell will ring before we get there.”

“Well, let's wait till all that singing's over. That just about breaks my back.”

Mary sat down resignedly. If they missed the singing perhaps John would not look at his watch and sigh so loud during the sermon. And it might not be a bad idea to miss the singing for another reason. The last time John had gone to church he had astonished her by sliding up beside her, taking hold of the hymn-book and singing! It happened to be his old favorite, “Sweet fields beyond the swelling flood.”

Of course it was lovely that he should want to sing it with her – but the way he sang it! He was in the wrong key and he came out two or three syllables behind on most of the lines, but undismayed by the sudden curtailment went boldly ahead on the next. And Mary had been much relieved when the hymn was ended and the book was closed. So now she waited very patiently for her husband to make some move toward starting. By and by he got up and they went out. No sooner was the door closed behind them than the “ting-a-ling-ling-ling” was heard. The doctor threw open the door and went back. Mary, waiting at the threshold, heard one side of the dialogue.

“Yes.”

“Down where?”

“Shake up your 'phone. I can't hear you.”

“That's better. Now what is it?”

“Swallowed benzine, did she? How much?.. That won't kill her. Give her some warm water to drink. And give her a spoonful of mustard – anything to produce vomiting… She has? That's all right. Tell her to put her finger down her throat and vomit some more… No, I think it won't be necessary for me to come down… You would? Well, let me hear again in the next hour or two, and if you still want me I'll come. Good-bye.”

They walked down the street and as they drew near the office they saw the figure of the office boy in the doorway silhouetted against the light within. He was looking anxiously in their direction. Suddenly he disappeared and the faint sound of a bell came to their ears. They quickened their pace and as they came up the boy came hurriedly to the door again.

“Is that you, Doctor?” he asked, peering out.

“Yes.”

“I told a lady at the 'phone to wait a minute, she's 'phoned twice.” Mary waited at the door while her husband went into the office and over to the 'phone.

“Yes. What is it?.. No. No. No!… Listen to me… Be still and listen to me! She's in no more danger of dying than you are. She couldn't die if she tried… Be still, I say, and listen to me!” He stamped his foot mightily. Mary laughed softly to herself. “Now don't hang over her and sympathize with her; that's exactly what she don't need. And don't let the neighbors hang around her either. Shut the whole tea-party out… Well, tell 'em I said so… I don't care a damn what they think. Your duty and mine is to do the very best we can for that girl. Now remember… Yes, I'll be down on the nine o'clock train tomorrow morning. Good-bye.” He joined his wife at the door. “If anybody wants me, come to the church,” he said, turning to the boy.

Mary laid her hand within her husband's arm and they started on. They met a man who stopped and asked the doctor how soon he would be at the office, as he was on his way there to get some medicine.

“I'd better go back,” said the doctor and back they went. It seemed to Mary that her husband might move with more celerity in fixing up the medicine. He was deliberation itself as he cut and arranged the little squares of paper. Still more deliberately he heaped the little mounds of white powder upon them. She looked on anxiously. At last he was ready to fold them up! No, he reached for another bottle. He took out the cork, but his spatula was not in sight. Nowise disturbed, he shifted bottles and little boxes about on the table.

“Can't you use your knife, Doctor?” asked Mary.

“O, I'll find it – it's around here somewhere.” In a minute or two the missing spatula was discovered under a paper, and then the doctor slowly, so slowly, dished out little additions to the little mounds. Then he laid the spatula up, put the cork carefully back in the bottle, turned in his chair and put two questions to the waiting man, turned back and folded the mounds in the squares with the most painstaking care. In spite of herself Mary fidgeted and when the powders with instructions were delivered and the man had gone, she rose hastily. “Do come now before somebody else wants something.”

The singing was over and the sermon just beginning when they reached the church. It progressed satisfactorily to the end. The doctor usually made an important unit in producing that “brisk and lively air which a sermon inspires when it is quite finished.” But tonight, a few minutes before the finale came, Mary saw the usher advancing down the aisle. He stopped at their seat and bending down whispered something to the doctor, who turned and whispered something to his wife.

“No, I'll stay and walk home with the Rands. I see they're here,” she whispered back.

The doctor rose and went out. “Who's at the office?” he asked, as he walked away with the boy.

“She's not there yet, she telephoned. I told her you was at church.”

“Did she say she couldn't wait?”

“She said she had been at church too, but a bug flew in her ear and she had to leave, and she guessed you'd have to leave too, because she couldn't stand it. She said it felt awful.”

“Where is she?”

“She was at a house by the Methodist church, she said, when she 'phoned to see if you was at the office. When I told her I'd get you from the other church, she said she'd be at the office by the time you got there.”

And she was, sitting uneasily in a big chair.

“Doctor, I've had a flea in my ear sometimes, but this is a different proposition. Ugh! Please get this creature out now. It feels as big as a bat. Ugh! It's crawling further in, hurry!”

“Maybe we'd better wait a minute and see if it won't be like some other things, in at one ear and out at the other.”

“O, hurry, it'll get so far in you can't reach it.”

“Turn more to the light,” commanded the doctor, and in a few seconds he held up the offending insect.

“O, you only got a little of it!”

“I got it all.”

“Well, it certainly felt a million times bigger than that,” and she departed radiantly happy.