Purple Springs - Nellie L. McClung
The young doctor, whose handsome face had grown pale, watched him with
a sort of fascination. The words seemed to roll from his lips without
the slightest effort, and apparently without causing his heart one
emotion. If the young doctor had not known him so well, he would have
thought him entirely unconcerned:
"We are cursed, you and I, and all of us," he resumed, with too much
activity. We are obscessed with a passion for material achievement! We
are hand-worshippers--leg-worshippers--speed-worshippers. We mistake
activity for progress."
"But it is progress," burst from the young man, "activity does bring
achievement--development."
The door of the office opened suddenly, and two young fellows rushed
in.
"Are you coming to the lacrosse meeting, Doc,--we are going to
organize, and we want you for President again, of course."
Then, seeing the city doctor, whom they recognized,--
"Excuse the interruption, but we can't get on without Dr. Clay, he's
the whole works of the lacrosse team."
"I will not be able to go over tonight, boys," said the Doctor, "but
you'll get on all right. You are getting to work pretty early--this is
the first fine day."
When the lacrosse boys had gone, Dr. Clay finished his argument:
"These fellows prove what I was saying. When I came here six years
ago, there was not even a baseball team in the place--the young
fellows gathered on street corners in summer, loafing and
idling, revelling in crazy, foolish degrading stories--absolute
degenerations--now see them--on the tail of a blizzard, they dig out
their lacrosse sticks and start the game on the second fine day.
From the time the hockey is over now, until hockey time again--these
fellows talk and dream lacrosse, and a decenter, cleaner lot of lads
you won't find anywhere. Activity has saved them--activity _is_
growth, it is life--it is everything!"
The old man shook his head slowly:
"They are not saved, my dear boy--none of us are--who depend on
outward things for your happiness. Outward things change--vanish.
'As a man thinketh in his heart--so is he!'--that is the secret of
triumphant living. As a man thinketh. These fellows of yours--for I
know this lacrosse team has been one of the many ways you took of
sapping your energy--do not think. They play, run, scrap, cheer, but
there's no meditation--no turning inward of the thoughts, no mental
progress.
"It would not be natural for growing boys, alive to their fingertips,
to sit yapping like lazy collie dogs, just thinking," said the young
doctor heatedly. "They want avenues of self-expression, and in
lacrosse and hockey they find it."
"Artificial aids to happiness--every one of them--crutches for lame
souls--the Kingdom of Heaven is within you," the old doctor rambled
on, "but it is all a part of this great new country--this big west is
new and crude and distinct--only the primary colors are used in the
picture, there are no half tones, no shadows, and above all--or
perhaps I should say behind all--no background. A thing is good or
bad--black or white--blue or red. We are mostly posters here in this
great big, dazzling country."
In the silence that fell on them, the young man's mind went limping
back to the old doctor's first words--the dreadful, fateful,
significant words. He had said it--said the thing that if it were true
would exile him from the world he loved! On him the ban had fallen!
"I suppose," said he, standing behind his chair, whose back he held
with nervous fingers, "there is no chance that you might be mistaken.
It is hard for me to believe this. I am so strong--so well--so much
alive, except my cough--I am as well as ever I was, and the cough is a
simple thing--this seems impossible to me!"
The old doctor had gone to the window to watch the throng of boys
and girls who raced past on their way to the hill for an evening's
sleigh-ride.
"It always seems impossible," he said, with the air of a man who is
totally disassociated from human affairs, and is simply stating an
interesting fact, "that is part of the disease, and a very attractive
part too. The people who have it, never think they have--even to the
last they are hopeful--and sure they will be better tomorrow. No, I am
afraid I am not mistaken. You know yourself the theory Clay, of the
two sets of microbes, the builders and the destroyers. Just at the
present moment, the destroyers have the best of it--they have put one
over on the builders--but that does not say that the good microbes are
not working--and may yet win. You are young, buoyant, happy, hopeful,
temperate in your habits--all of which gives you a better chance--if
you will throw the weight of your influence on the side of the
builders--there is a good chance of winning--I should think with your
Irish blood you would enjoy the fight, Clay."
The young doctor turned around suddenly and threw back his head, with
an impatient gesture.
"I love a fight, Dr. Brander, but it has to be of something worth
while. I have fought for the life of a man, a woman, a child, and I
have fought joyfully--for life is sweet, and I desired it for these
people, believing it to be a good gift. But in the fight you outline
for me, I see nothing to fire man's heart. I won't fight for life if
it means just breathing and scraping along at a poor, dying rate,
cheating the undertaker of a nice little piece of legitimate
business--I can't grow enthusiastic over the prospect of
always thinking about myself--and my rest--and my sleep--or my
clothes--always looking for a draught or fleeing from the night air or
a thunderstorm--never able to do a man's job or a day's work. I can't
do it, Dr. Brander, and you couldn't do it. It's a poor, miserable,
dull existence, unhappy for me, and no service to any one."
Two red spots burned in his cheeks, and the old doctor, noticing them,
wished again that he had come to see him sooner.
"See here, Clay," he said, sitting down again, with his hands spread
out on his knees, "you exaggerate this thing. You do not think you
are working unless you are slaving and owling around all hours of the
night, setting bones and pulling teeth, or ushering into this wicked
world sundry squalling babies who never asked to come, and do not like
it now they are here. You have been as strong as an ox, and keen as
a race-horse, now you have to slow up--you have to get out of this
country before another winter, and when you come back in Spring you
can go on with your patients--always with care."
The young doctor surveyed him with curling lip.
"Resume my practice," he said, "how simple. Send word ahead, I
suppose, by circular letter--
"'Dear Friends, I will be with you May 1st, to attend to your medical
needs. Save your appendicitis and neuralgia and broken bones for
me. Medical season opens for business May 1st, every one welcome'.
Something like that ought to be sufficient to hold my practice. It has
always seemed to me very inconsiderate for people to get sick in
the winter, and certainly it is no time for infants to begin their
career.... Now, see here, Dr. Brander, I appreciate all you say. I
know why you are talking this way to me. It is out of the kindness
of your heart--for you have a soft old heart behind all that
professionalism. But it does not look reasonable to me that a man who
has really lived, can ever drag along like you say. Who wants to live,
anyway, beyond the time of usefulness? I don't. I want to pass out
like old Prince--you remember my good old roan pacer, do you?"
"That red-eyed old anarchist of yours that no one could harness but
you?"
"That's the one--as good a horse as ever breathed--misunderstood, that
was all--well, he passed on, as the scientists say, last Fall, passed
on in a blaze of glory too, but just how glorious his death was, I
don't believe I realized until tonight.
"How did it happen?"
"I had a thirty mile drive to see Mrs. Porter, at Pigeon Lake--and
just as I was about to start, another message came that it was very
urgent if her life was to be saved. Old Prince would not drive
double--and my team was tired out. So I started with him alone. The
snow came on when I was half way there, and that made the going
bad--to add to the difficulties, a strong wind drove the blinding
snow in our faces. But the old boy ploughed on like a wrecking
engine--going out in a storm to clear the track. He knew all about it,
I never had to urge him. The last mile was the worst--he fell once,
but staggered to his feet and went on, on three legs.... When we got
to the house, I knew it was all up with old Prince--he had made his
last journey."
"But he was still living when I came out to see him four hours later.
The men had put him in a box stall, and had done all they could, but
his eyes were rolling, and his heart missed every fourth beat."
"The two little girls came out and cried over him, and told him he had
saved their mother's life, and tried to get him to eat sugar lumps ...
and--right to the last there was the same proud look in his red eyes,
and he gave me a sort of wink which let me know it was all right--he
didn't blame me or any one--and so I kissed him once, on the white
star on his honest forehead, and I put my left arm around his head so
he couldn't see what was coming, and sent a bullet through his brain."
"We buried him on the hillside overlooking the lake, and the little
girls put a slab up over him, which says:
"Prince of the house of Clay
Who saved our mother's life,
Lies here in peace, and lives
In grateful memory in our hearts."
There was a silence, in which each man's mind went back to the one
overwhelming thought--that bound them so close together.
Then the young doctor said slowly: "If what you say is true, I envy
Prince--and would gladly change places with him."
The old man recovered himself in a moment: "You take things too
seriously, Clay," he said quickly: "be glad you are not married. A
wife and children clutter up a man's affairs at a time like this--you
are quite free from family ties, I believe?"
"Quite free," the young man replied, "all my relatives live in the
East, all able to look after themselves. I have no person depending on
me--financially, I mean."
"Marriage," began the old doctor, in his most professional tone, as
one who reads from a manuscript, "is one-fourth joy and three-fourths
disappointment. There is no love strong enough to stand the grind of
domestic life. Marriage would be highly successful were it not for the
fearful bore of living together. Two houses, and a complete set of
servants would make marriage practically free from disappointments.
I think Saint Paul was right when he advised men to remain single if
they had serious work to do. Women, the best of them, grow tiresome
and double-chinned in time."
The young doctor laughed his own big, hearty laugh, the laugh which
his devoted patients said did them more good than his medicine.
"I like that," he said, "a man with a forty-two waist measure, wearing
an eighteen inch collar, finding fault with a woman's double chin. You
are not such a raving beauty yourself."
The old man interrupted him:
"I do not need to be. I am a doctor, a prescriber of pills, a mender
of bones, a plumber of pipes ... my work does not call for beauty.
Beauty is an embarrassment to a doctor. You would be happier, young
fellow, without that wavy brown hair and those big eyes of yours, with
their long lashes. A man is built for work, like a truck. Gold and
leather upholstering do not belong there. Women are different; it is
their place in life to be beautiful, and when they fail in that, they
fail entirely. They have no license to be fat, flabby double-chinned,
flat-footed. It is not seemly, and of course you cannot tell how any
of them may turn out. They are all pretty at sixteen. That is what
makes marriage such a lottery."
"I don't agree with you at all," said his companion, "it is absurd to
expect a woman of fifty to have the slim grace of a girl of eighteen.
My mother was a big woman, and I always thought her very beautiful.
I think you have a pagan way of looking at marriage. Marriage is a
mutual agreement, for mutual benefit and comfort, for sympathy and
companionship. Family life develops the better side of human nature,
and casts out selfishness. Many a man has found himself when he gets a
wife, and in the caring for his children has thrown off the shackels
of selfishness. People only live when they can forget themselves, for
selfishness is death. Your a great doctor, Dr. Brander, but a poor
philosopher."
The older man smiled grimly.
"See here, Clay," he said, "did you ever think of how nature fools us
poor dupes? Nature, old Dame Nature, has one object, and that is to
people the earth--and to this end she shapes all her plans. She makes
women beautiful, graceful, attractive and gives them the instinct to
dress in a way that will attract men. Makes them smaller and weaker
than men, too, which also makes its appeal. Why, if I hadn't watched
my step, I'd been married a dozen times. These little frilled and
powdered vixens have nearly got me.... If nature used half as much
care in keeping people healthy and free from accidents, as she does
in getting them here--it would be a happier world. But that is not
nature's concern--She leaves that to the doctors!"
"Well, how does the time go? Isn't that the train whistle?"
"No hurry," said Dr. Clay, rising, "it stops at the water-tank, and
that whistle is for the hill."
They walked over to the station in silence, and stood watching the red
eye that came gliding through the moonlit valley. The train seemed to
be slipping in to the station without a sound, in the hope that no one
would notice how late it was.
"Come up and see me, Clay," said the old man kindly. "I want to give
you a thorough examination--and I will expect you in a week--we'll
talk things over, and see what is best. You have my bag, don't bother
coming on--all right then--here's a double seat--so I can stretch
out--though it's hardly worth while for an hour. Goodbye Clay,
remember all I told you!"
When the doctor went back to his office, he sat long in his chair in
front of the fire, and thought. The place was the same--the cheerful
fire--the rows of books--the Fathers of Confederation picture on
the wall--and his college group. Everything was the same as it had
been--only himself. Everything in the room was strong, durable, almost
everlasting, able to resist time and wear. He was the only perishable
thing, it seemed.
He wondered how people act when confronted by the ruin of their hopes.
Do they rave and curse and cry aloud? He could not think clearly--his
mind seemed to avoid the real issue and refuse to strike on the sore
place, and he thought of all sorts of other things.
The permanence--the dreadful permanence of everything in the room
seemed to oppress him. "Man is mortal," he said, "his possessions
outlive him every last one of these things is more durable than I am".
The gray wall of the office--so strong and lasting--what chance had
an army of microbes against it--the heavy front door, with its cherry
panels and brass fittings, had no fear of draughts or cold. It had
limitless resistance. The stocky stove, on its four squat legs, could
hold its own and snap its fingers at time. They were all so arrogantly
indestructible, so fearfully permanent--they had no sympathy, no
common meeting ground with him.
A knock sounded on the door, and when he opened it, the station agent
was there, with a long box in his hand.
"It's marked 'Rush,' so I thought I had better shoot it over to you,
Doc," he said.
"Thanks, old man," the Doctor said mechanically, and put the box down
on the table. On a white label, in bright red letters, stood out the
word 'Perishable.'
The word struck him like a blow between the eyes. "Perishable!" Then
here was something to which he might feel akin. He opened the box,
with detached interest. A sweet breath of roses proclaimed the
contents. He had forgotten about sending for them until now--Pearl's
roses for this day--nineteen American Beauties!
He carefully unpacked the wrapping, and held up the sheaf of
loveliness, and just for one moment had the thrill of joy that beauty
had always brought to him. Pearl's roses! The roses, with which he
had hoped to say what was in his heart--here they were, in all their
exquisite loveliness, and ready to carry the words of love and hope
and tenderness--but now ... he had nothing to say ... love and
marriage were not for him!
He sat down heavily, beside the table over which the roses lay
scattered, spilling their perfume in the room.
He fingered them lovingly, smoothing their velvety petals with a
tender hand, while his mind sought in vain to readjust itself to the
change the last two hours had brought.
He turned again to the fire, which glowed with blue and purple lights
behind the windows of isinglass, curling and flaming and twisting,
with fascinating brilliance. Long he sat, watching it, while the
sounds outside in the street grew less and less, and at last when he
went to the window, he found the street in darkness and in silence.
The moon had set, and his watch told him it was two o'clock.
The wind whimpered in the chimney like a lonesome puppy, rising and
falling, cying out and swelling with eerie rhythm; a soft spring wind,
he knew it was, that seemed to catch its breath like a thing in pain.
Looking again at the roses, he noticed that the leaves were drooping.
He hastily went into the dispensary and brought out two graduates
filled with water to put them in; but when he lifted them--he
saw, with poignant pain--they were gone past helping--they were
frost-bitten.
Then it was that he gathered them in his arms, with sudden passion,
and as he sat through the long night, he held them closely to him, for
kin of his they surely were--these frosted roses, on whose fragrant
young hearts the blight had so prematurely fallen!
CHAPTER IV
TANGLED THREADS
At daybreak, when the light from the eastern sky came in blue at the
window blind, and the gasoline lamp grew sickly and pale, the doctor
went to bed. He had thought it all out and outlined his course of
action.
He did not doubt the old doctor's word; his own knowledge gave
corroborative evidence that it was quite true, and he wondered he had
not thought of it. Still, there was something left for him to do. He
would play up and play the game, even if it were a losing fight. His
own house had fallen, but it would be his part now to see that the
minimum amount of pain would come to Pearl over it. She was young,
and had all the world before her--she would forget. He had a curious
shrinking from having her know that he had the disease, for like most
doctors, he loathed the thought of disease, and had often quoted
to his patients in urging them to obey the laws of physiological
righteousness, the words of Elbert Hubbard that "The time would come
when people would feel more disgrace at being found in a hospital than
in a jail, for jails were for those who broke men's laws, but those in
the hospital had broken the laws of God!"
He shuddered now when he thought of it, it all seemed so
unnecessary--so wantonly cruel--so so inexplicable.
Above all, Pearl must not know, for instinctively he felt that if she
knew he was a sick man, she would marry him straight away--she would
be so sweet about it all, and so hopeful and sure he would get well,
and such a wonderfully skilful and tender nurse, that he would surely
get well. For one blissful but weak moment, which while it thrilled
it frightened him still more--he allowed himself to think it would be
best to tell her. Just for one weak moment the thought came--to be
banished forever from his mind. No! No! No! disaster had come to him,
but Pearl would not be made to suffer, she would not be involved in
any way.
But just what attitude to take, perplexed him. Those big, soft brown
eyes of hers would see through any lie he tried to invent, and he
was but a poor liar anyway. What could he tell Pearl? He would
temporize--he would stall for time. She was too young--she had seen so
little of the world--it would be hard to wait--he believed he could
take that line with her--he would try it.
When he awakened, the sun was shining in the room, with a real spring
warmth that just for a minute filled him with gladness and a sense of
wellbeing. Then he remembered, and a groan burst from his lips.
The telephone rang:
Reaching out, he seized it and answered.
"It's me," said a voice, "It's Pearl! I am coming in--I know you're
tired after yesterday, and you need a long sleep--so don't disturb
yourself--I'll be in about two o'clock--just when the sun is
brightest--didn't I tell you it would be finer still today?"
"You surely did, Pearl," he answered, "however you knew."
"I'm not coming just to see you--ma wants a new strainer, and Bugsey
needs boots, and Mary has to have another hank of yarn to finish the
sweater she's knitting--these are all very urgent, and I'll get them
attended to first, and then...."
She paused:
"Then you'll come and see me, Pearl"--he finished, "and we'll have the
meeting which we adjourned three years ago--to meet yesterday."
"That's it," she said, "and goodbye until then."
He looked at his watch, it was just ten--there was yet time.
Reaching for the telephone, he called long distance, Brandon. "Give me
Orchard's greenhouses," he said.
After a pause he got the wire:
"Send me a dozen and a half--no, nineteen--American Beauty roses on
today's train, without fail. This is Dr. Clay of Millford talking."
He put back the telephone, and lay back with a whimsical smile,
twisting his mouth. "The frosted ones are mine," he said to himself,
"there will be no blight or spot or blemish on Pearl's roses."
It was quite like Pearl to walk into the doctors' office without
embarrassment. It was also like her to come at the exact hour she had
stated in her telephone message--and to the man who sat waiting for
her, with a heart of lead, she seemed to bring the whole sunshine of
Spring with her.
Ordinarily, Dr. Clay did not notice what women wore, they all looked
about the same to him--but he noticed that Pearl's gray coat and furs
just needed the touch of crimson which her tam o'shanter and gloves
supplied, and which seemed to carry out the color in her glowing
cheeks. She looked like a red apple in her wholesomeness.
He had tried to get the grittiness of the sleepless night out of his
eyes, and had shaved and dressed himself with the greatest care,
telling himself it did not matter--but the good habit was deeply
fastened on him and could not be set aside.
There was nothing about the well-dressed young man, with his carefully
brushed hair and splendid color, to suggest disease. Pearl's eyes
approved of each detail, from the way his hair waved and parted back;
the dull gold and purple tie, which seemed to bring out the bronze
tones in his hair and the steely gray of his eyes; the well-cut
business suit of rough brown tweed, with glints of green and bronze,
down to the dark brown, well-polished boots.
Pearl was always proud of him; it glowed in her eyes again today,
and again he felt it, warming his heart and giving him the sense of
well-being which Pearl's presence always brought. All at once he felt
rested and full of energy.
When the first greetings were over, and Pearl had seated herself, at
his invitation, in the big chair, he said, laughing:
"'Tis a fine day, Miss Watson."
"It is that!" said Pearl, with her richest brogue, which he had often
told her he hoped she would never lose.
"And you are eighteen years old now," he said, in the same tone.
"Eighteen, going on nineteen," she corrected gaily.
"All right, eighteen--going on--nineteen. Three years ago there was a
little bargain made between us--without witnesses, that we would defer
all that was in our minds for three years--we'd give the matter a
three years' hoist--and then take it up just where we left it!"
She nodded, without speaking.
"Now I have thought about it a lot," he went on, "indeed I do not
think a day has gone by without my thinking of it, and incidentally,
I have thought of myself and my belongings. I wish to draw your
attention to them--I am twenty-nine years old--I've got a ten years'
start of you, and I will always expect to be treated with respect on
account of my years--that's clearly understood, is it?"
He was struggling to get himself in hand.
"Clearly understood," she repeated, with her eyes on him in
unmistakable adoration.
"Six years ago," he seemed to begin all over gain--"I came out of
college, with all sorts of fine theories, just bubbling over with
enthusiasm, much the same as you are now, fresh from Normal, but
somehow they have mostly flattened out, and now I find myself settling
down to the prosy life of a country doctor, who feeds his own horses
and blackens his own boots, and discusses politics with the retired
farmers who gather in the hardware store. I catch myself at it quite
often. Old Bob Johnson and I are quite decided there will be a war
with Germany before many years. We don't stop at Canadian affairs--the
world is not too wide for us! Yes, Pearl, here I am, a country doctor,
with an office in need of paint--a very good medical library--in need
of reading--a very common-place, second-rate doctor--who will never
be a great success, who will just continue to grub along. With you,
Pearl, it is different. You have ambition, brains--and something about
you that will carry you far--I always knew it--and am so glad that at
the Normal they recognized your ability."