The Story of a Doctor's Telephone—Told by His Wife

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.

CHAPTER IV

One day in early spring the doctor surprised his wife by asking her if she would like to take a drive.

“In March? The roads are not passable yet, surely.”

But the doctor assured her that the roads were getting pretty good except in spots. “I have such a long journey ahead of me today that I want you to ride out as far as Centerville and I can pick you up as I come back.”

“That's seven or eight miles. I'll go. I can stop at Dr. Parkin's and chat with Mrs. Parkin till you come.”

Accordingly a few minutes later the doctor and Mary were speeding along through the town which they soon left far behind them.

About two miles out they saw a buggy down the road ahead of them which seemed to be at a stand-still. When they drew near they found a woman at the horses' heads with a broken strap in her hand. She was gazing helplessly at the buggy which stood hub-deep in mud. She recognized the doctor and called out, “Dr. Blank, if ever I needed a doctor in my life, it's now.”

“Stuck fast, eh?”

The doctor handed the reins to his wife and got out.

“I see – a broken single-tree. Well, I always unload when I get stuck, so the first thing we do we'll take this big lummox out of here,” he said picking his way to the buggy. The lummox rose to her feet with a broad grin and permitted herself to be taken out. She was a fat girl about fourteen years old.

“My! I'll bet she weighs three hundred pounds,” observed the doctor when she was landed, which was immediately resented. Then he took the hitching-rein and tied the tug to the broken end of the single-tree; after which he went to the horses' heads and commanded them to “Come on.” They started and the next instant the vehicle was on terra firma. Mother and daughter gave the doctor warm thanks and each buggy went its separate way.

Mary was looking about her. “The elms have a faint suspicion that spring is coming; the willows only are quite sure of it,” she said, noting their tender greenth which formed a soft blur of color, the only color in all the gray landscape. No, there is a swift dash of blue, for a jay has settled down on the top of a rail just at our travelers' right.

Soon they were crossing a long and high bridge spanning a creek which only a week before had been a raging torrent; the drift, caught and held by the trunks of the trees, and the weeds and grasses all bending in one direction, told the story. But the waters had subsided and now lay in deep, placid pools.

“Stop, John, quick!” commanded Mary when they were about half way across. The doctor obeyed wondering what could be the matter. He looked at his wife, who was gazing down into the pool beneath.

“I suppose I'm to stop while you count all the fish you can see.”

“I was looking at that lovely concave sky down there. See those two white clouds floating so serenely across the blue far, far below the tip-tops of the elm trees.”

The doctor drove relentlessly on.

“Another mudhole,” said Mary after a while, “but this time the travelers tremble on the brink and fear to launch away.”

When they came up they found a little girl standing by the side of the horse holding up over its back a piece of the harness. She held it in a very aimless and helpless way. “See,” said Mary, “she doesn't know what to do a bit more than I should. I wonder if she can be alone.”

The doctor got out and went forward to help her and discovered a young man sitting cozily in the carriage. He glanced at him contemptuously.

“Your harness is broken, have you got a string?” he asked abruptly.

“N-n-o, I haven't,” said the youth feeling about his pockets.

“Take your shoe-string. If you haven't got one I'll give you mine,” and he set his foot energetically on the hub of the wheel to unlace his shoe.

“Why, I've got one here, I guess,” and the young man lifted a reluctant foot. The doctor saw and understood. The little sister was to fix the harness in order to save her brother's brand new shoes from the mud.

“You'd better fix that harness yourself, my friend, and fix it strong,” was the doctor's parting injunction as he climbed into the buggy and started on.

“I don't like the looks of this slough of despond,” said Mary. The next minute the horses were floundering through it, tugging with might and main. Now the wheels have sunk to the hubs and the horses are straining every muscle.

“Merciful heaven!” gasped Mary. At last they were safely through, and the doctor looking back said, “That is the last great blot on our civilization – bad roads.”

After a while there came from across the prairie the ascending, interrogative boo-oo-m of a prairie chicken not far distant, while from far away came the faint notes of another. And now a different note, soft, melodious and mournful is heard.

“How far away do you think that dove is?” asked the doctor.

“It sounds as if it might be half a mile.”

“It is right up here in this tree in the field.”

“Is it,” said Mary, looking up. “Yes, I see, it's as pretty and soft as its voice. But I'm getting sunburned, John. How hot a March day can get!”

“Only two more miles and good road all the way.”

A few minutes more and Mary was set down at Centerville, “I'll be back about sunset,” announced her husband as he drove off.

A very pleasant-faced woman answered the knock at the door. She had a shingle in her hand and several long strips of muslin over her arm. She smilingly explained that she didn't often meet people at the door with a shingle but that she was standing near the door when the knock came.

Mary, standing by the bed and removing hat and gloves, looked about her.

“What are you doing with that shingle and all this cotton and stuff, Mrs. Parkin?” she asked.

“Haven't you ever made a splint?”

“A splint? No indeed, I'm not equal to that.”

“That's what I'm doing now. There's a boy with a broken arm in the office in the next room.”

“Oh, your husband has his office here at the house.”

“Yes, and it's a nuisance sometimes, too, but one gets used to it.”

“I'll watch you and learn something new about the work of a doctor's wife.”

“You'll learn then to have a lot of pillow slips and sheets on hand. Old or new, Dr. Parkin just tears them up when he gets in a hurry – it doesn't matter to him what goes.”

The doctor's wife put cotton over the whole length of the shingle and wound the strips of muslin around it; then taking a needle and thread she stitched it securely. Mary sat in her chair watching the process with much interest. “You have made it thicker in some places than in others,” she said.

“Yes; that is to fit the inequalities of the arm.” Mary looked at her admiringly. “You are something of an artist,” she observed.

Just as Mrs. Parkin finished it her husband appeared in the doorway.

“Is it done?” he asked.

“It's just finished.”

“May I see you put it on, Doctor?” asked Mary, rising and coming forward.

“Why, good afternoon, Mrs. Blank. I'm glad to see you out here. Yes, come right in. How's the doctor?”

“Oh, he is well and happy – I think he expects to cut off a foot this afternoon.”

A boy with a frightened look on his face stood in the doctor's office with one sleeve rolled up. The doctor adjusted the fracture, then applied the splint while his wife held it steady until he had made it secure. When the splint was in place and the boy had gone a messenger came to tell the doctor he was wanted six miles away.

About half an hour afterward a little black-eyed woman came in and said she wanted some more medicine like the last she took.

“The doctor's gone,” said Mrs. Parkin, “and will not be back for several hours.”

“Well, you can get it for me, can't you?”

“Do you know the name of it?”

“No, but I believe I could tell it if I saw it,” said the patient, going to the doctor's shelves and looking closely at the bottles and phials with their contents of many colors. She took up a three-ounce bottle. “This is like the other bottle and I believe the medicine is just the same color. Yes, I'm sure it is,” she said, holding it up to the light. Mary looked at her and then at Mrs. Parkin.

“I wouldn't like to risk it,” said the latter lady.

“Oh, I'm not afraid. I don't want to wait until the doctor comes and I know this must be like the other. It's exactly the same color.”

“My good woman,” said Mary, “you certainly will not risk that. It might kill you.”

“No, Mrs. Dawson, you must either wait till the doctor comes or come again,” said Mrs. Parkin. The patient grumbled a little about having to make an extra trip and took her leave.

When the door had closed behind her Mary asked the other doctor's wife if she often had patients like that.

“Oh, yes. People come here when the doctor is away and either want me to prescribe for them or to prescribe for themselves.”

“You don't do it, do you?”

“Sometimes I do, when I am perfectly sure what I am doing. Having the office here in the house so many years I couldn't help learning a few things.”

“I wouldn't prescribe for anything or anybody. I'd be afraid of killing somebody.” About an hour later Mary, looking out of the window, saw a wagon stopping at the gate. It contained a man and a woman and two well-grown girls.

“Hello!” called the man.

“People call you out instead of coming in. That is less trouble,” observed Mary. The doctor's wife went to the door.

“Is Doc at home?”

“No, he has gone to the country.”

“How soon will he be back?”

“Not before supper time, probably.”

The man whistled, then looked at his wife and the two girls.

“Well, Sally,” he said, “I guess we'd better git out and wait fur 'im.”

“W'y, Pa, it'll be dark long before we git home, if we do.”

“I can't help that. I'm not agoin' to drive eight miles tomorry or next day nuther.”

“If ye'd 'a started two hour ago like I wanted ye to do, maybe Doc'd 'a been here and we c'd 'a been purty nigh home by this time.”

“Shet up! I told ye I wasn't done tradin' then.”

“It don't take me all day to trade a few aigs for a jug o' m'lasses an' a plug o' terbacker.”

For answer the head of the house told his family to “jist roll out now.” They rolled out and in a few minutes they had all rolled in. Mrs. Parkin made a heroic effort not to look inhospitable which made Mary's heroic effort not to look amused still more heroic.

When at last the afternoon was drawing to a close Mary went out into the yard to rest. She wished John would come. Hark! There is the ring of horses' hoofs down the quiet road. But these are white horses, John's are bays. She turns her head and looks into the west. Out in the meadow a giant oak-tree stands between her and the setting sun. Its upper branches are outlined against the grey cloud which belts the entire western horizon, while its lower branches are sharply etched against the yellow sky beneath the grey.

What a calm, beautiful sky it was!

She thought of some lines she had read more than once that morning … a bit from George Eliot's Journal:

“How lovely to look into that brilliant distance and see the ship on the horizon seeming to sail away from the cold and dim world behind it right into the golden glory! I have always that sort of feeling when I look at sunset. It always seems to me that there in the west lies a land of light and warmth and love.”

A carriage was now coming down the road at great speed. Mary saw it was her husband and went in to put on her things. In a few minutes more she was in the buggy and they were bound for home. It was almost ten o'clock when they got there. The trip had been so hard on the horses that all the spirit was taken out of them. The doctor, too, was exceedingly tired. “Forty-two miles is a long trip to make in an afternoon,” he said.

“I hope Jack and Maggie are not up so late.”

“It would be just like them to sit up till we came.”

The buggy stopped; the door flew open and Jack and Maggie stood framed in the doorway with the leaping yellow firelight for a background.

CHAPTER V

Once in a while sympathy for a fellow mortal kept the doctor's wife an interested listener at the 'phone. Going, one morning, to speak to a friend about some little matter she heard her husband say:

“What is it, doctor?” A physician in a little town some ten or twelve miles distant, who had called Dr. Blank in consultation a few days before, was calling him.

“I think our patient is doing very well, but her heart keeps getting a little faster.”

“How fast is it now?”

“About 120.”

“But the disease is pretty well advanced now – that doesn't mean as much as it would earlier. But you might push a little on the brandy, or the strychnine – how much brandy have you given her since I saw her?”

“I have given her four ounces.”

“Four ounces!”

“Yes.”

“Four ounces in three days? I think you must mean four drachms.”

“Yes. It is drachms. Four ounces would be fixing things up. I've been giving her digitalis; what do you think about that?”

“That's all right, but I think that strychnine would be a little better.”

“Would you give her any aromatic spirits of ammonia?”

“Does she rattle?”

“A little.”

“Then you might give her a little of that. And keep the room open and stick right to her and she ought to get along. Don't give her much to eat.”

“Is milk all right?”

“Yes. You bet it is.”

“All right then, doctor, I believe that's all. Good-bye.”

On another occasion, Mary caught this fragment:

“She's so everlastin' sore that she just hollers and yells every time I go near her. Would you give her any more morphine?”

“Morphine's a thing you can't monkey with you know, Doctor. You want to be mighty careful about that.”

“Yes. I know. How long will that morphine last?”

“That depends on how you use it. It won't last long if you use too much and neither will she.”

“I mean how long will it last in the system?”

“O! Why, three or four hours.”

“Well, I think she don't need no more medicine.”

Mary smiled at the double negative and when she laughingly spoke of it that night her husband assured her that that doctor's singleness of purpose more than offset his doubleness of negative. That he was a fine fellow and a good physician just the same.

One morning in March just as the doctor arose from the breakfast table he was called to the 'phone.

“Is this Dr. Blank?”

“Yes.”

“Doctor, will it hurt the baby to bathe it every morning? I've been doing that but some of the folks around here say I oughtn't to do it; they say it isn't good for a baby to bathe it so often.”

The doctor answered solemnly, “The baby's fat and healthy isn't it?”

“Yes, sir.”

“And pretty?”

“Yes, sir.”

“Likes to see its mamma?”

“You know it.”

“Likes to see its papa?”

“He does that!” said the young mother.

“Then ask me next fall if it will hurt to bathe the baby every morning.”

“All right, Doctor,” laughed the baby's mamma.

“The fools are not all dead yet,” said John, as he took his hat and departed. On the step he turned back and put his head in at the door. “Keep an ear out, Mary. I'm likely to be away from the office a good bit this morning.”

An hour later a call came. Mary put the ear that was “out” to the receiver:

“It's on North Adams street.”

“All right. I'll be out there after awhile,” said her husband's placid voice.

“Don't wait too long. He may die before you git here.”

“No, he won't. I'll be along pretty soon.”

“Well, come just as quick as you can.”

“All right,” and the listener knew that it might be along toward noon before he got there.

About eleven o'clock the 'phone rang sharply.

“Is this Dr. Blank's house?”

“Yes.”

“Is he there?”

“I saw him pass here about twenty minutes ago. I'm sure he'll be back to the office in a little bit.”

“My land! I've been here three or four times. Looks like I'd ketch him some time.”

“You are at the office then? If you will sit down and wait just a little while, he will be in.”

“I come six miles to see him. I supposed of course he'd be in some time,” grumbled the voice (of course a woman's).

“But when he is called to visit a patient he must go, you know,” explained Mary.

“Y-e-s,” admitted the voice reluctantly. “Well, I'll wait here a little while longer.”

Ten minutes later Mary rang the office. Her husband replied.

“How long have you been back, John?”

“O, five or ten minutes.”

“Did you find a woman waiting for you?”

“No.”

“Well, I assured her you'd be there in a few minutes and she said she'd wait.”

“Do you know who she was?”

“No. Some one from the country. She said she came six miles to see you and she supposed you'd be in your office some time, and that sometime was mightily emphatic.”

“O, yes, I know now. She'll be in again,” laughed the doctor and Mary felt relieved, for in the querulous tones of the disappointed woman she had read disapproval of the doctor and of herself too, as the partner not only of his joys and sorrows, but of his laggard gait as well. The people who wait for a doctor are not apt to consider that a good many more may be waiting for him also at that particular moment of time.

CHAPTER VI

One of the most discouraging things I have encountered is a great blank silence. The doctor asks his wife to keep a close watch on the telephone for a little while, and leaves the office. Pretty soon it rings and she goes to answer it.

“Hello?” Silence. “What is it?” More silence. She knows that “unseen hands or spirits” did not ring that bell. She knows perfectly well that there is a listening ear at the other end of the line. But you cannot converse with silence any more than you can speak to a man you meet on the street if he purposely looks the other way.

Mary knew that the listening ear belonged to someone who recognized that it was the wife who answered instead of the doctor, and therefore kept silent. She smiled and hung up the receiver – sorry not to be able to help her husband and to give the needed information to the patient.

But when this had happened several times she thought of a more satisfactory way of dealing with the situation. She would take down the receiver and ask, “What is it?” She would wait a perceptible instant and then say distinctly and pleasantly, “Doctor Blank will be out of the office for about twenty minutes. He asked me to tell you.” That never failed to bring an answer, a hasty, shame-voiced, “Oh, I – well – thank you, Mrs. Blank, I'll call again, then.”

The doctor's absence from town has its telephonic puzzles. One day during Dr. Blank's absence his wife was called to the 'phone.

“Mrs. Blank, a telegram has just come for the doctor. What must I do with it?” It was the man at the office who put the question.

“Do you know what it is, or where it's from?”

“I asked the operator and he says it's from Mr. Slocum, who is in Cincinnati. He telegraphed the doctor to go and see his wife who is sick.”

“Well, take it over to Dr. Brown's office and ask him to go and see her.”

About half an hour later the thought of the telegram came into her mind. “I wonder if he found Dr. Brown in. I'd better find out.”

She rang the office. “Did you find Dr. Brown in?”

“Yes, he was there.”

“And you gave the message to him?”

“Yes, he took it.”

“I hope he went right down?”

“No, he said he wouldn't go.”

“Wouldn't go!” exclaimed Mary, much astonished.

“He said he knew Slocum and he was in all probability drunk when he sent the message.”

“Why, what a queer conclusion to arrive at. The doctor may be right but I think we ought to know.”

“I called up their house after I came back from Dr. Brown's office, but nobody answered. So she can't be very sick or she'd be at home.”

Mary put up the receiver hesitatingly. She was not satisfied about this matter. She went about her work, but her thoughts were on the message and the sick wife. Suddenly she thought of something – the Slocum children were in school. The mother had not been able to get to the 'phone to answer it. The thought of her lying there alone and helpless was too much. Mary went swiftly to the telephone and called the office.

“Johnson, you have to pass Mrs. Slocum's on your way to dinner. I think she may have been too ill to go to the 'phone. Please stop and find out something definite.”

“All right.”

“And let me know as soon as you can. If she isn't sick don't tell her anything about the telegram. Think up some excuse as you go along for coming in, in case all is well.”

In about twenty minutes the expected summons came.

“Well, I stopped, Mrs. Blank.”

“What did you find?”

“Well, I found a hatchet close to Slocum's gate.”

“How lucky!”

“I took it in to ask if it was theirs.”

“Was it?”

“No, it wasn't.”

“Who told you so?”

“Mrs. Slocum, herself, and she's about the healthiest looking invalid I've seen lately.”

“I'm much relieved. Thank you, Johnson.” And as she left the 'phone she meditated within herself, “Verily, the tender thoughtfulness of the husband drunk exceedeth that of the husband sober.”

When night came and Mary was preparing for bed she thought, “It will be very unpleasant to be called up only to tell people the doctor is not here.” She rose, went to the 'phone and called central.

“This is Mrs. Blank, central. If anyone should want the doctor tonight, or for the next two nights, please say he is out of town and will not be home until Saturday.”

Then with a delicious sense of freedom she went to bed and slept as sweetly as in the long-ago when the telephone was a thing undreamed of.

The ting-a-ling-ling-ling – came as Mary was pouring boiling water into the teapot, just before six on a cool July evening. The maid was temporarily absent and Mary had been getting supper in a very leisurely way when she saw her husband step up on the porch. Then her leisure was exchanged for hurry. The doctor's appearance before meal time was the signal to which she responded automatically – he had to catch a train – someone must have him right away, or what not? She must not keep him waiting a minute. She pushed the teapot back on the stove and went swiftly to the 'phone.

“Is this Dr. Blank's office?” asked a disturbed feminine voice.