The Milan exchange. (Milan, Gibson County, Tenn.) 1874-1978, 1874-07-30
THE DOCTOR.
BY Kate PUTNAM osGooD.

BY KATE PUTNAM oSGooD.
He was not the only one of his kind in
HolInby, but yet he was "the doctor" pa,
e1cetteHee. That was the name he was
Known Dy TO every man, woman, and
child in the place-the title of honor still
lnvoluntarily yielded TO him even by the
small minority who had been seduced from
their allegiance by the brisk young
physician who had lately set up an estab-
hshment as smart as himself among them.
Young DIR. Price was young DIR. Price, a
medical fraction, so most conveniently to
be numbered and distinguished from the
rest; but the other was the doctor,' a
complete and separate unit in himself. 1t
may be doubted if his townspeople had not
forgotten that he had an existence outside
his professional one, it was so long since
they had known him in any other way: so
long since he himself had heard his own
name that he must have looked back with
kind of incredulOus wonder to the time
when he first wrote himself with flourish
Charles Lister. NJ. ID. Yes, il was long
time, for the doctor was not young man
now, though younger perhaps that he
looked, for, without reckoning the hard
ships Of his profession. he had lived alone
all these years, and solitary people are apt
TO age fast. He had neither chick nor
child belonging to him; he had never
married-never thought of marrying ac-
cordlng to his own account, for that was
the answer he used to make TO anybody
who ioked him about his old bachelorhoOd.
that he had 'never had the time to think
of such things" Be that as il might, at
fOrty-odd he was unmarried and likely TO
remain so: shabby. rough village doctor.
who looked older than he was. and who
had more gray than black in his hair.
Life means very different things to differ
ent people; to the doctor it meant work,
and hard work, too. Up hill and down
dale, through summer sun and winter
wind, called from his bed. from his meals,
ii was, perhaps. no wonder If he was rath-
er griZzled and unkempt. He grumbled
sometimes at particularly unreasonable
calls, but he never delayed an instant i'm
answering them, and ve-y often the mes
senger found himselfleft behind i'm a dusty
whirlwind by the battered-lOOking horse
and gig that went rattling along at a break
neck pace which threatened to give their
owner occupation in setting his own bones.
Such summons it was that the doctor
received one March evening. just as, after
coming in from an unusually hard days
round. he was sitting himself with an ap-
Ting over the gravel path. then a dash up
the doorstep, and peal at the bell such as
even that long-suffering bell had seldom
had to endure, while simultaneously a
shrill boys voice called ont, apparently
addressing the neighbOrhOod generally:
"Say, is the doctor to hOme?"
:" Yes, yes" testify answered for him.
self the doctor. who had strobe to the win
dow and flung up the sash. - DO MT pull
the house down, my lad. What's wanted
now!''
At sight of the doctor the small boy be-
came somewhat subdued in tone, though
by no means in vOlubility. "Old Mr..
Dody down to Longs took in fit, and
Miss Addle says III you please come to
oncet eos she thinks her father 5 dead"
"Humph ont see the use of disturb
ing me, then," grHmbled the Doctor
making preparation nevertheless for in
stant departure.
Then sh'll say you'll be there right
away?n asked the boy, swinging roun l
on one heel ready for flight.
/" Yes, you can say so, if you get there
first" answered the doctor, with a grim
smile. He stopped long enough to drain
his tea-cup at a single draught, and then,
abandoning the rest of the untasted meal
to his housekeeper's laments, climbed into
his gig and was off like a shot, leaving the
boy with nothing better to do than to
watch the sparks struck out by the horses
flying heels along the stony road.
The doctor leaned back and looked alb
stractedlv at the fields and hedgerOws
that, black and bare-for it was an early
spring that year. and the SHOWS were al
ready melted-glimmered and grew and
vanished again to right and left of him.
81,
been something weirdly dismal in those
wide, dim. hurrying plains under the
skeleton bOughs writhing in the March
wind; but there was no season or weather,
no hour of day or night, when the doctor
had not seen them; and, besides, he was
not particularly impressiOnable man;
now, in fact, he hardly saw them
at all, for, though his glance rested on
them in passing, his thoughts had
gone forward TO the new patient he was
summoned to. "DOwn at Longs" the
doctor said to himself. Those are the
people Weston was speaking about this
mOrning-sOme kind of foreigners, he
says. Wonder what's wrong with the old
man? Shouldn't have been surprised now
if it had been the girl. What was it Bob
called her? Addle? Outlandish name!
She's no stamina; one Of the slate-pencil-
CallnS sort Dy ner LOOKS
Meanwhile the girl with the outlandish
name was waiting in breathless impotence
for the oracle of life or death. See her
now as she stands searching the dim March
night, with her face pressed against the
window that looks out on the highrOad.
and you will hardly wonder at the doctors
slate-pencil SANDER So frail, so pale i'm
the shadows of the black hair low on the
,.1r In tl,. Il
eyes. she looks so unlike the blooming
Holmby damSels that, if the doctor had
been superStitiOus, he might have taken
her for ghost Ominous of evil to his pa
tient. But the doctor was no ghOSt-Seer,
and even had he been such, he would have
been quite ready to pit his own well-proved
skill against any ghoStly menace.
She did not. rs he rather expected, dis
turb him in his duties by ill-timed nerv-
business. She did not ask a single useless
question. but followed all his movements
mutely, ready for every want like a second
brain and hand. But when, all done that
could be done for tie present, anG the
final directions given. he prepared ID go,
she stole softly after him.
"Oh, doctor, will he die?r she said in a
voice which though unbrOken by any sob,
had very agony of fear in its sound.
The doctors ordinary manner was alb
rupt. not to say rough. but in the sick
chamber he was gentle as a mother TO a
suffering babe, and that i'm Just proportion
TO the danger of the case-a fact which.
fortunately toI her peace of mind. the girl
before him did not know. He looked
down very kindly into the great appealing
eyes riveted on his.
"DOn'C fret yourself. child" he said
" I've brought many a sicker man round
again. Just yoH keep up as YOU have to-
night. and leave the rest to me-"
The light that flashed over the whole
uplifted face was revelation as it were to
the doctor-a heart glimpse such as, with
all his experience, he had never known
exactly the like of. 1t haunted him some
how, and set him dreaming of things he
had never found it in his way TO dream OF
before.
1.-The old man shGz't die, " he said TO
himself, clenching his hand on the reins in
a way that reused the astonished pony into
standing stiff and straight on his hind
legs. ats going to be hard fight, but
I'm bound to win if / have to take it out OF
myselfto do it."
The doctor kept his word, taking it ORt
of himself very literally for the next few