The Essential Gene Stratton-Porter Collection. Stratton-Porter Gene
comes again. It takes cold weather to make folks feel what ails their muscles, and my treatment is mostly muscular. To save so we can get a real start, wouldn't it be a good idea for you to put part of your things in my room, take what you must have, and fix Mother's bedroom for you, let her move her bed into her living room, and spare me all you can of your things to fix up your room for my office this summer. That would save rent, it's only a few steps from downtown, and when I wasn't busy with patients, I could be handy to the garden, and to help you."
"If your mother is willing, I'll do my share," said Kate, "although the room's cramped, and where I'll put the small party when he comes I don't know, but I'll manage someway. The big objection to it is that it will make it look to people as if it were a makeshift, instead of starting a real business."
"Real," was the wrong word. It was the red rag that started George raging, until to save her self-respect, Kate left the room. Later in the day he announced that his mother was willing, she would clean the living room and move in that day. How Kate hated the tiny room with its one exterior wall, only one small window, its scratched woodwork, and soiled paper, she could not say. She felt physically ill when she thought of it, and when she thought of the heat of the coming summer, she wondered what she would do; but all she could do was to acquiesce. She made a trip downtown and bought a quart of white paint and a few rolls of dainty, fresh paper. She made herself ill with turpentine odours in giving the woodwork three coats, and fell from a table almost killing herself while papering the ceiling. There was no room for her trunk; the closet would not hold half her clothes; her only easy chair was crowded out; she was sheared of personal comfort at a clip, just at a time when every comfort should have been hers. George ordered an operating table, on which to massage his patients, a few other necessities, and in high spirits, went about fixing up his office and finishing his school. He spent hours in the woodshed with the remainder of Kate's white paint, making a sign to hang in front of the house.
He was so pathetically anxious for a patient, after he had put his table in place, hung up his sign, and paid for an announcement in the county paper and the little Walden sheet, that Kate was sorry for him.
On a hot July morning Mrs. Holt was sweeping the front porch when a forlorn specimen of humanity came shuffling up the front walk and asked to see Dr. Holt. Mrs. Holt took him into the office and ran to the garden to tell George his first patient had come. His face had been flushed from pulling weeds, but it paled perceptibly as he started to the back porch to wash his hands.
"Do you know who it is, Mother?" he asked.
"It's that old Peter Mines," she said, "an' he looks fit to drop."
"Peter Mines!" said George. "He's had about fifty things the matter with him for about fifty years."
"Then you're a made man if you can even make him think he feels enough better so's he'll go round talking about it," said Mrs. Holt, shrewdly.
George stood with his hands dripping water an instant, thinking deeply.
"Well said for once, old lady," he agreed. "You are just exactly right."
He hurried to his room, and put on his coat.
"A patient that will be a big boom for me," he boasted to Kate as he went down the hall.
Mrs. Holt stood listening at the hall door. Kate walked around the dining room, trying to occupy herself. Presently cringing groans began to come from the room, mingling with George's deep voice explaining, and trying to encourage the man. Then came a wild shriek and then silence. Kate hurried out to the back walk and began pacing up and down in the sunshine. She did not know it, but she was praying.
A minute later George's pallid face appeared at the back door: "You come in here quick and help me," he demanded.
"What's the matter?" asked Kate.
"He's fainted. His heart, I think. He's got everything that ever ailed a man!" he said.
"Oh, George, you shouldn't have touched him," said Kate.
"Can't you see it will make me, if I can help him! Even Mother could see that," he cried.
"But if his heart is bad, the risk of massaging him is awful," said Kate as she hurried after George.
Kate looked at the man on the table, ran her hand over the heart region, and lifted terrified eyes to George.
"Do you think--?" he stammered.
"Sure of it!" she said, "but we can try. Bring your camphor bottle, and some water," she cried to Mrs. Holt.
For a few minutes, they worked frantically. Then Kate stepped back. "I'm scared, and I don't care who knows it," she said. "I'm going after Dr. James."
"No, you are not!" cried George. "You just hold yourself. I'll have him out in a minute. Begin at his feet and rub the blood up to his heart."
"They are swollen to a puff, he's got no circulation," said Kate. "Oh, George, how could you ever hope to do anything for a man in this shape, with MUSCULAR treatment?"
"You keep still and rub, for God's sake," he cried, frantically. "Can't you see that I am ruined if he dies on this table?"
"No, I can't," said Kate. "Everybody would know that he was practically dying when he came here. Nobody will blame you, only, you never should have touched him! George, I AM going after Dr. James."
"Well, go then," he said wildly.
Kate started. Mrs. Holt blocked the doorway.
"You just stop, Missy!" she cried. "You're away too smart, trying to get folks in here, and ruin my George's chances. You just stay where you are till I think what to do, to put the best face on this!"
"He may not be really gone! The doctor might save him!" cried Kate.
Mrs. Holt looked long at the man.
"He's deader 'an a doornail," she said. "You stay where you are!"
Kate picked her up by the shoulders, set her to one side, ran from the room and down the street as fast as possible. She found the doctor in his office with two patients. She had no time to think or temporize.
"Get your case and come to our house quick, doctor," she cried. "An old man they call Peter Mines came to see George, and his heart has failed. Please hurry!"
"Heart, eh?" said the doctor. "Well, wait a minute. No use to go about a bad heart without digitalis."
He got up and put on his hat, told the men he would be back soon, and went to the nearest drug store. Kate followed. The men who had been in the office came also.
"Doctor, hurry!" she panted. "I'm so frightened."
"You go to some of the neighbours, and stay away from there," he said.
"Hurry!" begged Kate. "Oh, do hurry!"
She was beside him as they sped down the street, and at his shoulder as they entered the room. With one glance she lurched against the casing and then she plunged down the hall, entered her room, closed the door behind her, and threw herself on the bed. She had only a glance, but in that glance she had seen Peter Mines sitting fully clothed, his hat on his head, his stick in his hands, in her easy chair; the operating table folded and standing against the wall; Mrs. Holt holding the camphor bottle to Peter's nose, while George had one hand over Peter's heart, the other steadying his head.
The doctor swung the table in place, and with George's help laid Peter on it, then began tearing open