Sevenoaks. J. G. Holland
reasomble," said Jim, "but what is it like? What do they do with it? Can a feller get a livin' by it?"
"Not in Sevenoaks," replied the Doctor, with a bitter smile.
"Then, what's the use of it?"
"Pardon me, Mr. Fenton," replied the Doctor. "You'll excuse me, when I veil you that you have not arrived at that mental altitude—that intellectual plane—"
"No," said Jim, "I live on a sort of a medder."
The case being hopeless, the Doctor went on and opened the door into what he was pleased to call "the insane ward." As Jim put his head into the door, he uttered a "phew!" and then said:
"This is worser nor the town meetin'."
The moment Jim's eyes beheld the misery that groaned out its days and nights within the stingy cells, his great heart melted with pity. For the first moments, his disposition to jest passed away, and all his soul rose up in indignation. If profane words came to his lips, they came from genuine commiseration, and a sense of the outrage that had been committed upon those who had been stamped with the image of the Almighty.
"This is a case of Shakspearean madness," said Dr. Radcliffe, pausing before the barred and grated cell that held a half-nude woman. It was a little box of a place, with a rude bedstead in one corner, filthy beyond the power of water to cleanse. The occupant sat on a little bench in another corner, with her eyes rolled up to Jim's in a tragic expression, which would make the fortune of an actress. He felt of his hair, impulsively.
"How are ye now? How do ye feel?" inquired Jim, tenderly.
She gave him no answer, but glared at him as if she would search the very depths of his heart.
"If ye'll look t'other way, ye'll obleege me," said Jim.
But the woman gazed on, speechless, as if all the soul that had left her brain had taken up its residence in her large, black eyes.
"Is she tryin' to look me out o' countenance, Doctor?" Inquired Jim, "'cause, if she is, I'll stand here and let 'er try it on; but if she ain't I'll take the next one."
"Oh, she doesn't know what she's about, but it's a very curious form of insanity, and has almost a romantic interest attached to it from the fact that it did not escape the notice of the great bard."
"I notice, myself," said Jim, "that she's grated and barred."
The Doctor looked at his visitor inquisitively, but the woodman's face was as innocent as that of a child. Then they passed on to the next cell, and there they found another Woman sitting quietly in the corner, among the straw.
"How fare ye, this mornin'?" inquired Jim, with a voice full of kindness.
"I'm just on the verge of eternity," replied the woman.
"Don't ye be so sure o' that, now," responded Jim. "Ye're good for ten year yit."
"No," said the woman, "I shall die in a minute."
"Does she mean that?" inquired Jim, turning to the Doctor.
"Yes, and she has been just on the verge of eternity for fifteen years," replied the Doctor, coolly. "That's rather an interesting case, too. I've given it a good deal of study. It's hopeless, of course, but it's a marked case, and full of suggestion to a scientific man."
"Isn't it a pity," responded Jim, "that she isn't a scientific man herself? It might amuse her, you know."
The Doctor laughed, and led him on to the next cell, and here he found the most wretched creature he had ever seen. He greeted her as he had greeted the others, and she looked up to him with surprise, raised herself from the straw, and said:
"You speak like a Christian."
The tears came into Jim's eyes, for he saw in that little sentence, the cruelty of the treatment she had received.
"Well, I ain't no Christian, as I knows on," he responded, "an' I don't think they're very plenty in these parts; but I'm right sorry for ye. You look as if you might be a good sort of a woman."
"I should have been if it hadn't been for the pigeons," said the woman. "They flew over a whole day, in flocks, and flocks, and cursed the world. All the people have got the plague, and they don't know it. My children all died of it, and went to hell. Everybody is going to hell, and nothing can save them. Old Buffum'll go first. Robert Belcher'll go next. Dr. Radcliffe will go next."
"Look here, old woman, ye jest leave me out of that calkerlation," said Jim.
"Will you have the kindness to kill me, sir?" said the woman.
"I really can't, this mornin'," he replied, "for I've got a good ways to tramp to-day; but if I ever want to kill anybody I'll come round, p'r'aps, and 'commodate ye."
"Thank you," she responded heartily.
The Doctor turned to Jim, and said:
"Do you see that hole in the wall, beyond her head? Well, that hole was made by Mr. Buffum. She had begged him to kill her so often that he thought he would put her to the test, and he agreed he would do so. So he set her up by that wall, and took a heavy stick from the wood-pile, raised it as high as the room would permit, and then brought it down with great violence, burying the end of the bludgeon in the plastering. I suppose he came within three inches of her head, and she never winked. It was a very interesting experiment, as it illustrated the genuineness of her desire for death Otherwise the case is much like many others."
"Very interestin'," responded Jim, "very! Didn't you never think of makin' her so easy and comfortable that she wouldn't want any body to kill her? I sh'd think that would be an interestin' experiment."
Now the Doctor had one resort, which, among the people of Sevenoaks, was infallible, whenever he wished to check argumentation on any subject relating to his profession. Any man who undertook to argue a medical question with him, or make a suggestion relating to medical treatment, he was in the habit of flooring at once, by wisely and almost pityingly shaking his head, and saying: "It's very evident to me, sir, that you've not received a medical education." So, when Jim suggested, in his peculiar way, that the woman ought to be treated better, the Doctor saw the point, and made his usual response.
"Mr. Fenton," said he, "excuse me, sir, but it's very evident that you've not had a medical education."
"There's where you're weak," Jim responded. "I'm a reg'lar M.D., three C's, double X, two I's. That's the year I was born, and that's my perfession. I studied with an Injun, and I know more 'arbs, and roots, and drawin' leaves than any doctor in a hundred mile; and if I can be of any use to ye, Doctor, there's my hand."
And Jim seized the Doctor's hand, and gave it a pressure which raised the little man off the floor.
The Doctor looked at him with eyes equally charged with amusement and amazement. He never had been met in that way before, and was not inclined to leave the field without in some way convincing Jim of his own superiority.
"Mr. Fenton," said he, "did you ever see a medulla oblongata?"
"Well, I seen a good many garters," replied the woodsman, 'in the stores, an' I guess they was mostly oblong."
"Did you ever see a solar plexus?" inquired the Doctor, severely.
"Dozens of 'em. I allers pick a few in the fall, but I don't make much use of 'em."
"Perhaps you've seen a pineal gland," suggested the disgusted Doctor.
"I make 'em," responded Jim. "I whittle 'em out evenin's, ye know."
"If you were in one of these cells," said the Doctor, "I should think you were as mad as a March hare."
At this moment the Doctor's attention was called to a few harmless patients who thronged toward him as soon as they learned that he was in the building, begging for medicine; for if there is anything that a pauper takes supreme delight in it is drugs. Passing along with them to a little lobby, where he could inspect them more conveniently, he