Chapter 13

But we must resume our ride. On, on goes the doctor; rain pouring, wind blowing, mud splashing. Ever and anon he checks his horse's speed, at his various posts of duty. High and low, rich and poor anxiously await his coming. He may not shrink from the ghastly spectacle of human suffering and death. Humanity, in its most loathsome forms, is presented to him.

The nearest and dearest may turn away in grief and horror, but the doctor blenches not.

Again we are digressing. The doctor's well-known tap is heard at the door of a sick-room, where for many days he has been in constant attendance. Noiselessly he is admitted. The young husband kneels at the side of the bed where lies his dearest earthly treasure. The calm but deeply-afflicted mother advances to the doctor, and whispers fearfully low,

“There is a change. She sleeps. Is it--oh! can it be the sleep of death?”

Quickly the physician is at the bedside, and anxiously bending over his patient.

Another moment and he grasps the husband's hand, while the glad words “She will live,” burst from his lips.

We may not picture forth their joy. On, on, we are riding with the doctor. Once more we are at his own door. Hastily he enters, and takes up the slate containing the list of calls during his absence. At half a dozen places his presence is requested without delay.

A quick step is heard on the stairs, and his gentle wife hastens to welcome him.

“I am so glad you have come; how wet you must be!”

The parlour door is thrown open. What a cheerful fire, and how inviting look the dressing-gown and the nicely warmed slippers!

“Take off your wet clothes, dear; dinner will soon be ready,” urges the wife.

“It is impossible, Mary. There are several places to visit yet. Nay, never look so sad. Have not six years taught you what a doctor's wife must expect?”

“I shall never feel easy when you are working so hard, Henry; but surely you will take a cup of hot coffee; I have it all ready. It will delay you but a moment.”

The doctor consents; and while the coffee is preparing, childish voices are heard, and little feet come quickly through the hall.

“Papa has come home!” shouts a manly little fellow of four years, as he almost drags his younger sister to the spot where he has heard his father's voice.

The father's heart is gladdened by their innocent joy, as they cling around him; but there is no time for delay. A kiss to each, one good jump for the baby, the cup of coffee is hastily swallowed, the wife receives her embrace with tearful eyes, and as the doctor springs quickly into his chaise, and wheels around the corner, she sighs deeply as she looks at the dressing-gown and slippers, and thinks of the favourite dish which she had prepared for dinner; and now it may be night before he comes again. But she becomes more cheerful as she remembers that a less busy season will come, and then they will enjoy the recompense of this hard labour.

The day wears away, and at length comes the happy hour when gown and slippers may be brought into requisition. The storm still rages without, but there is quiet happiness within. The babies are sleeping, and father and mother are in that snug little parlour, with its bright light and cheerful fire. The husband is not too weary to read aloud, and the wife listens, while her hands are busied with woman's never-ending work.

But their happiness is of short duration. A loud ring at the bell.

“Patient in the office, sir,” announces the attendant.

The doctor utters a half-impatient exclamation; but the wife expresses only thankfulness that it is an office patient.

“Fine night for a sick person to come out!” muttered the doctor, as he unwillingly lays down his book, and rises from the comfortable lounge.

But he is himself again by the time his hand is on the door of the office, and it is with real interest that he greets his patient.

“Tooth to be extracted? Sit down, sir. Here, Biddy, bring water and a brighter lamp. Have courage, sir; one moment will end it.”

The hall door closes on the relieved sufferer, and the doctor throws himself again on the lounge, and smilingly puts the bright half dollar in his pocket.

“That was not so bad, after all, Mary. I like to make fifty cents in that way.”

“Cruel creature! Do not mention it.”

“Cruel! The poor man blessed me in his heart. Did I not relieve him from the most intense suffering?”

“Well, never mind. I hope there will be no more calls to-night.”

“So do I. Where is the book? I will read again.” No more interruptions. Another hour, and all, are sleeping quietly.

Midnight has passed, when the sound of the bell falls on the doctor's wakeful ear. As quickly as possible he answers it in person, but another peal is heard ere he reaches the door.

A gentleman to whose family he has frequently been called, appears.

“Oh! doctor, lose not a moment; my little Willie is dying with the croup!”

There is no resisting this appeal. The still wet overcoat and boots are drawn on; medicine case hastily seized, and the doctor rushes forth again into the storm.

Pity for his faithful horse induces him to traverse the distance on foot, and a rapid walk of half a mile brings him to the house.

It was no needless alarm. The attack was a severe one, and all his skill was required to save the life of the little one. It was daylight ere he could leave him with safety. Then, as he was about departing for his own home, an express messenger arrived to entreat him to go immediately to another place nearly a mile in an opposite direction.

Breakfast was over ere he reached his own house. His thoughtful wife suggested a nap; but a glance at the already well-filled slate showed this to be out of the question. A hasty toilet, and still hastier breakfast, and the doctor is again seated in his chaise, going on his accustomed rounds; but we will not now accompany him.

Let us pass over two or three months, and invite ourselves to another ride. One pleasant morning, when less pressed with business, he walks leisurely from the house to the chaise, and gathering up the reins with a remarkably thoughtful air, rides slowly down the street.

But few patients are on his list, and these are first attended to.

The doctor then pauses for consideration. He has set apart this day for _collecting_. Past experience has taught him that the task is by no means an agreeable one. It is necessary, however--absolutely so--for, as we have said before, doctors must live as well as other people; their house-rent must be paid, food and clothing must be supplied.

A moment only pauses the doctor, and then we are again moving onward. A short ride brings us to the door of a pleasantly-situated house. We remember it well. It is where the little one lay in fits when we last rode out with the doctor. We recall the scene: the convulsed countenance of the child; the despair of the parents, and the happiness which succeeded when their beloved one was restored to them.

Surely they will now welcome the doctor. Thankfully will they pay the paltry sum he claims as a recompense for his services. We are more confident than the doctor. Experience is a sure teacher. The door does not now fly open at his approach. He gives his name to the girl who answers the bell, and in due time the lady of the house appears.

“Ah! doctor, how do you do? You are quite a stranger! Delightful weather,” &c.

The doctor replies politely, and inquires if her husband is in.

“Yes, he is in; but I regret to say he is exceedingly engaged this morning. His business is frequently of a nature which cannot suffer interruption. He would have been pleased to have seen you.”

The doctor's pocket-book is produced, and the neatly drawn bill is presented.

“If convenient to Mr. Lawton, the amount would be acceptable.”

“I will hand it to him when he is at leisure. He will attend to it, no doubt.”

The doctor sighs involuntarily as he recalls similar indefinite promises; but it is impossible to insist upon interrupting important business. He ventures another remark, implying that prompt payment would oblige him; bows, and retires.

On, on goes the faithful horse. Where is to be our next stopping-place? At the wealthy merchant's, who owed so much to the doctor's skill some two months since. Even the doctor feels confidence here. Thousands saved by the prevention of that fever. Thirty dollars is not to be thought of in comparison.

All is favourable. Mr. Palmer is at home, and receives his visiter in a cordial manner. Compliments are passed. Now for the bill.

“Our little account, Mr. Palmer.”

“Ah! I recollect; I am a trifle in your debt. Let us see: thirty dollars! So much? I had forgotten that we had needed medical advice, excepting in my slight indisposition a few weeks since.”

Slight indisposition! What a memory some people are blessed with!

The doctor smothers his rising indignation.

“Eight visits, Mr. Palmer, and at such a distance. You will find the charge a moderate one.”

“Oh! very well; I dare say it is all right. I am sorry I have not the money for you to-day, doctor. Very tight just at present; you know how it is with men of business.”

“It would be a great accommodation if I could have it at once.”

“Impossible, doctor! I wish I could oblige you. In a week, or fortnight, at the farthest, I will call at your office.”

A week or fortnight! The disappointed doctor once more seats himself in his chaise, and urges his horse to speed. He is growing desperate now, and is eager to reach his next place of destination. Suddenly he checks the horse. A gentleman is passing whom he recognises as the young husband whose idolized wife has so lately been snatched from the borders of the grave.

“Glad to see you, Mr. Wilton; I was about calling at your house.”

“Pray, do so, doctor; Mrs. Wilton will be pleased to see you.”

“Thank you; but my call was on business, to-day. I believe I must trouble you with my bill for attendance during your wife's illness.”

“Ah! yes; I recollect. Have you it with you? Fifty dollars! Impossible! Why, she was not ill above three weeks.”

“Very true; but think of the urgency of the case. Three or four calls during twenty-four hours were necessary, and two whole nights I passed at her bedside.”

“And yet the charge appears to me enormous. Call it forty, and I will hand you the amount at once.”

The doctor hesitates. “I cannot afford to lose ten dollars, which is justly my due, Mr. Wilton.”

“Suit yourself, doctor. Take forty, and receipt the bill, or stick to your first charge, and wait till I am ready to pay it. Fifty dollars is no trifle, I can tell you.”

And this is the man whose life might have been a blank but for the doctor's skill!

Again we are travelling onward. The unpaid bill is left in Mr. Wilton's hand, and yet the doctor half regrets that he had not submitted to the imposition. Money is greatly needed just now, and there seems little prospect of getting any.

Again and again the horse is stopped at some well-known post. A poor welcome has the doctor to-day. Some bills are collected, but their amount is discouragingly small. Everybody appears to feel astonishingly healthy, and have almost forgotten that they ever had occasion for a physician. There is one consolation, however: sickness will come again, and then, perhaps, the unpaid bill may be recollected. Homeward goes the doctor. He is naturally of a cheerful disposition; but now he is seriously threatened with a fit of the blues. A list of calls upon his slate has little effect to raise his spirits. “All work and no pay,” he mutters to himself, as he puts on his dressing-gown and slippers; and, throwing himself upon the lounge, turns a deaf ear to the little ones, while he indulges in a revery as to the best mode of paying the doctor.

KEEP IN STEP.

Those who would walk together must keep in step.

--OLD PROVERB.

AY, the world keeps moving forward, Like an army marching by; Hear you not its heavy footfall, That resoundeth to the sky? Some bold spirits bear the banner-- Souls of sweetness chant the song,-- Lips of energy and fervour Make the timid-hearted strong! Like brave soldiers we march forward; If you linger or turn back, You must look to get a jostling While you stand upon our track. Keep in step.

My good neighbour, Master Standstill, Gazes on it as it goes; Not quite sure but he is dreaming, In his afternoon's repose! “Nothing good,” he says, “can issue From this endless moving on; Ancient laws and institutions Are decaying, or are gone. We are rushing on to ruin, With our mad, new-fangled ways.” While he speaks a thousand voices, As the heart of one man, says-- “Keep in step!”

Gentle neighbour, will you join us, Or return to “_good old ways?_” Take again the fig-leaf apron Of Old Adam's ancient days;-- Or become a hardy Briton-- Beard the lion in his lair, And lie down in dainty slumber Wrapped in skins of shaggy bear,-- Rear the hut amid the forest, Skim the wave in light canoe? Ah, I see! you do not like it. Then if these “old ways” won't do, Keep in step.

Be assured, good Master Standstill, All-wise Providence designed Aspiration and progression For the yearning human mind. Generations left their blessings, In the relies of their skill, Generations yet are longing For a greater glory still; And the shades of our forefathers Are not jealous of our deed-- We but follow where they beckon, We but go where they do lead! Keep in step.

One detachment of our army May encamp upon the hill, While another in the valley May enjoy its own sweet will; This, may answer to one watchword, That, may echo to another; But in unity and concord, They discern that each is brother! Breast to breast they're marching onward, In a good now peaceful way; You'll be jostled if you hinder, So don't offer let or stay-- Keep in step.

JOHNNY COLE.

“I GUESS we will have to put out our Johnny,” said Mrs. Cole, with a sigh, as she drew closer to the fire, one cold day in autumn. This remark was addressed to her husband, a sleepy, lazy-looking man, who was stretched on a bench, with his eyes half closed. The wife, with two little girls of eight and ten, were knitting as fast as their fingers could fly; the baby was sound asleep in the cradle; while Johnny, a boy of thirteen, and a brother of four, were seated on the wide hearth making a snare for rabbits. The room they occupied was cold and cheerless; the warmth of the scanty fire being scarcely felt; yet the floor, and every article of furniture, mean as they were, were scrupulously neat and clean.

The appearance of this family indicated that they were very poor. They were all thin and pale, really for want of proper food, and their clothes had been patched until it was difficult to decide what the original fabric had been; yet this very circumstance spoke volume in favour of the mother. She was, a woman of great energy of character, unfortunately united to a man whose habits were such, that, for the greater part of the time, he was a dead weight upon her hands; although not habitually intemperate, he was indolent and good-for-nothing to a degree, lying in the sun half his time, when the weather was warm, and never doing a stroke of work until driven to it by the pangs of hunger.

As for the wife, by taking in sewing, knitting, and spinning for the farmers' families in the neighbourhood, she managed to pay a rent of twenty dollars for the cabin in which they lived; while she and Johnny, with what assistance they could occasionally get from Jerry, her husband, tilled the half acre of ground attached; and the vegetables thus obtained, were their main dependance during the long winter just at hand. Having thus introduced the Coles to our reader, we will continue the conversation.

“I guess we will have to put out Johnny, and you will try and help us a little more, Jerry, dear.”

“Why, what's got into the woman now?” muttered Jerry, stretching his arms, and yawning to the utmost capacity of his mouth. The children laughed at their father's uncouth gestures, and even Mrs. Cole's serious face relaxed into a smile, as she answered,

“Don't swallow us all, and I will tell you. The winter is beginning early, and promises to be cold. Our potatoes didn't turn out as well as I expected, and the truth is, we cannot get along so. We won't have victuals to last us half the time; and, manage as I will, I can't much more than pay the rent, I get so little for the kind of work I do. Now, if Johnny gets a place, it will make one less to provide for; and he will be learning to do something for himself.”

“Yes, but mother,” said the boy, moving close to her side, and laying his head on her knee, “yes, but who'll help you when I am gone? Who'll dig the lot, and hoe, and cut the wood, and carry the water? You can't go away down to the spring in the deep snow. And who'll make the fire in the cold mornings?”

The mother looked sorry enough, as her darling boy--for he was the object around which the fondest affections of her heart had entwined themselves--she looked sorry enough, as he enumerated the turns he was in the habit of doing for her; but, woman-like, she could suffer and be still; so she answered cheerfully,

“May be father will, dear; and when you grow bigger, and learn how to do everything, you'll be such a help to us all.”

“Don't depend on me,” said Jerry, now arousing himself and sauntering to the fire; “I hardly ever feel well,”--complaining was Jerry's especial forte, an excuse for all his laziness; yet his appetite never failed; and when, as was sometimes the case, one of the neighbours sent a small piece of meat, or any little article of food to his wife, under the plea of ill health he managed to appropriate nearly the whole of it. He was selfishness embodied, and a serious injury to his family, as few cared to keep him up in his laziness.

One evening, a few days later, Mrs. Cole, who had been absent several hours, came in looking very tired, and after laying aside her old bonnet and shawl, informed them that she had obtained a place for Johnny. It was four miles distant, and the farmer's man would stop for him on his way from town, the next afternoon. What a beautiful object was farmer Watkins's homestead, lying as it did on the sunny slope of a hill; its gray stone walls, peeping out from between the giant trees that overshadowed it, while everything around and about gave evidence of abundance and comfort. The thrifty orchard; the huge barn with its overflowing granaries; the sleek, well-fed cattle; even the low-roofed spring-house, with its superabundance of shining pails and pans, formed an item which could hardly be dispensed with, in the _tout ensemble_ of this pleasant home.

Farmer Watkins was an honest, hard-working man, somewhat past middle age, with a heart not naturally devoid of kindness, but, where his hirelings were concerned, so strongly encrusted with a layer of habits, that they acted as an effectual check upon his better feelings. His family consisted of a wife, said to be a notable manager, and five or six children, the eldest, a son, at college. In this household, work, work, was the order of the day; the farmer himself, with his great brown fists, set the example, and the others, willing or unwilling, were obliged to follow his lead. He had agreed to take John Cole, as he said, more to get rid of his mother's importunities, than for any benefit he expected to derive from him; and when remonstrated with by his wife for his folly in giving her the trouble of another brat, he answered shortly: “Never fear, I'll get the worth of his victuals and clothes out of him.” Johnny was to have his boarding, clothes, and a dollar a month, for two years. This dollar a month was the great item in Mrs. Cole's calculations; twelve dollars a year, she argued, would almost pay her rent, and when the tears stood in Johnny's great brown eyes (for he was a pretty, gentle-hearted boy), as he was bidding them all good-bye, and kissing the baby over and over again, she told him about the money he would earn, and nerved his little heart with her glowing representations, until he was able to choke back the tears, and leave home almost cheerfully.

_Home_--yes, it was home; for they had much to redeem the miseries of want within those bare cabin walls, for gentle hearts and kindly smiles were there. There

“The mother sang at the twilight fall, To the babe half slumbering on her knee.”

There his brother and sisters played; there his associations, his hopes, his wishes, were all centered. When he arrived at farmer Watkins's, and was sent into the large carpeted kitchen, everything was so unlike this home, that his fortitude almost gave way, and it was as much as he could do, as he told his mother afterwards, “to keep from bursting right out.” Mrs. Watkins looked very cross, nor did she notice him, except to order him to stand out of the way of the red-armed girl who was preparing supper and placing it on a table in the ample apartment. Johnny looked with amazement at the great dishes of meat, and plates of hot biscuit, but the odour of the steaming coffee, and the heat, were almost too much for him, as he had eaten nothing since morning, for he was too sorry to leave home to care about dinner. The girl, noticing that his pale face grew paler, laughingly drew her mistress's attention to “master's new boy.”

“Go out and bring in some wood for the stove,” said Mrs. Watkins, sharply; “the air will do you good.”

Johnny went out, and, in a few minutes, felt revived. Looking about, he soon found the wood-shed; there was plenty of wood, but none cut of a suitable length; it was all in cord sticks. Taking an axe, he chopped an armful, and on taking it into the house, found the family, had finished their suppers; the biscuits and meat were all eaten.

“Come on here to your supper,” said the maid-servant, angrily. “What have you been doing?” and, without waiting for an answer, she filled a tin basin with mush and skimmed milk, and set it before him. The little boy did not attempt to speak, but sat down and ate what was given him. Immediately after, he was sent into a loft to bed, where he cried himself to sleep. Ah! when we count the thousand pulsations that yield pain or pleasure to the human mind, what a power to do good or evil is possessed by every one; and how often would a kind word, or one sympathizing glance, gladden the hearts of those thus prematurely forced upon the anxieties of the world! But how few there are who care to bestow them! The next morning, long before dawn, the farmer's family, with the exception of the younger children were astir. The cattle were to be fed and attended to, the horses harnessed, the oxen yoked, and great was the bustle until all hands were fairly at work. As for Johnny, he was taken into the field to assist in husking corn. The wind was keen, and the stalks, from recent rain, were wet, and filled with ice. His scanty clothing scarcely afforded any protection from the cold, and his hands soon became so numb that he could scarcely use them; but, if he stopped one moment to rap them, or breathe upon them, in the hope of imparting some warmth, the farmer who was close at hand, in warm woollen clothes and thick husking gloves, would call out,

“Hurry up, hurry up, my boy! no idle bread must be eaten here!”