Watertown republican. [volume] (Watertown, Wis.) 1860-1906, 1881-12-21
lFrom the Detroit Free Press.l
OUR DOCTORS TROUBLES.
BY JULIA MAGRUDER.

It may make matters the simpler if I
begin with the admission that am an
eccentric man. Heretofore I have not
confessed it, but the mere fact of my
having graduated liz medicine, both in
my own country and at foreign univer-
.sity-not at all discreditably by the way
and spent at each place a great lot of
money and commensurate portion of
time and labor and then followed up
these experiences by settling, for the
practice of my profession, in a dull,
poverty-stricken district in the noun
tains of Virginia-these facts, 1 say,
make the eccentricity foregone con-
clusion.
The truth is, my location had been
due to as spontaneous an inspiration as
Wemyck's "Hello +! Here's church !
Let's have wedding !" for in passing
through this mountain region, pausing
here and there for the shooting, [ had
encountered a yet more direct essential
to medical practice than was Wemyck's
church to the wedding, in the shape of
various and multiform cases of disease. I
found, scattered through the country,
numbers of poor creatures so crushed
beneath the burden of disease and pov-
.erty that, being as it was very near to a
populous and tolerably prosperous vii
1age, it filled me with amazement, / be-
came interested in them, and for the
present, at least, resolved to pitch my
tent among them. And so I settled in
Redmere. To be quite candid, the place
had another attraction for me beside the
one I have mentioned. I had travelled
to my present location, you must know,
In the company of certain Miss Roland,
to whom friend had presented me
hastily as our train was leaving the
station. It soon becoming evident that
our destination was the same, the young
lady informed me that she was but just
returned from several years of foreign
travel, and was going to make her home
with a married sister residing near Red
mere.
In spite of the fact that I have seen
good many fine women in my day
women whose character, experience and
intellect entitled them to the epithet-
Miss Roland was a revelation to me.
She said dozen good things in the
course of an hour, and she was never
trivial or commonplace. She was not
beauty, not even very pretty, [ should
say, but her face was delicate, intelli-
gent and wonderfully refined. I soon
became aware, by some intuitive in
,stinct, which her subsequent admission
confirmed, that she was a musician, and
L felt sure she was no ordinary one.
With me music is an absorbing passion,
and much of my time in Germany had
been given to its cultivation; so of course
this was good news
When delivered Miss Roland up to
her friends, she, as well as they, kindly
invited me to call, and though accepted
it with prompt pleasure, it was some
time before l actually appeared at Mrs.
Wynne's. In fact, I compelled myself
TO keep away, for upon mature reflection
Miss Roland seemed to me a person to
be avoided. I had become aware that /
had been, in an unusual degree, reused
and interested by my brief intercourse
with her, and this interest was SO widely
disproportionate to what [ felt in any
other of the score of young women of
my acquaintance that distinctly feared
that something unexpected and unde-
sired-a love affair, In short--would be
the result of a continuation of the inter-
course. Was / so very humble and self
distrustful, you may ask, as to conclude
that my feeling for the lady. if it should
npen into love, must necessarily be
without reciprocation. In point of fact,
these qualities have never been reckoned
among my vices, and yet it did occur to
me to doubt explicitly whether such q
diamond of woman as this would find
In the person of amoderately intelligent,
moderately good lookingand moderately
successful physician, what, in Rosa
Matilda parlance, would be styled " the
requirements of her soul" L have for
gotten to state among my qualifications
and you must put this lapse down to
the odd idea I had formed of Miss
Roland-that L am rather more than
moderately well off. Positively don't
imagine-of course I may be wrong,
but / don't imagine that fact would have
much weight with this unusual woman.
However all this may be, from pruden-
tial motives, am resolved to escheu
Miss Roland for the present.
When once / had determined to settle
In Redmere / lost no time In securing
from my farmer host acomfortable set OF
rooms, and sent at once for my books
and Instruments musical as well as