The Arkansaw traveler., 1889-11-02
STORY OF THE THREE DOCTORS.
BY LUXE START.

Smith, Brown and Jones were classmates in the medical department of Michigan university. They graduated at the head of their class and had been great friends throughout the portion of time which it takes to transform raw country lad into phy sican. Their professors predicted a great career for them and the boys left the university with high hopes for the future in great and noble profession. During their last day at college they had 6 consul tation together to where they would locate. The fantest hearted of them thought that perhaps the best thing they could do to strike out for the wild west Go to Washington Territory, or Da- kota, or Montana, and grow up with the country. But the braver of the three carried the day. He held that there was no use waiting SO long and practically exiling themselves for a competence.
 "Who," he said, twill be the great physician of New York ten years from now2" Nobody could tell. alt is somebody who is to-day struggling along, probably barely making a living. The city is the place tor us boys We may have 8 year or two of hard grubbing, but tell you the city is the spot in which to grow. When you have made country practice what does it amount to7 It means hard work every day in the year. Driving through bad roads for miles in the country and collecting mighty little for it. I know what country doctors life is, because was raised in the country. Now, whatever city select we be, if we hang on, in the midst of & big practice ten years from now. 1t is something worth striv- ing for. We may not get along as we'll at first as we would in & country place or village where there was no doctor, but we are sure to get more in the end, and to enjoy then all the advantages of civil lizstion."
 So the boys agreed to start together in some big city, and Chicago was the place chosen. Smith located in poor but thickly populated part of the city. Brown got spot in an aristocratic part of the town and Jones located in a street where there were about fifty doctors, because he believed that where there were so many he would possibly stumble on the business of some who already were having more than they could do.
 For awhile the boys kept up their courage. They knew that they understood the profession, and probably understood it much better than some of the rich old fogies who were ten or twenty years behind the times, and who had splendid practices. At the end of year the boys who were now rather sad-eyed young men, met together to compare notes.
 Smith had had any amount of practice. He had been kept on the go nearly night and day. At first he liked it because 1t gave him real experi- ence, which man could never get in the rooms of the clinic, or the ward of the hospital. He had been very successful and was extremely we'll liked by the people whom he had located among. But, alas! when.it came to collecting there was . differ ent story 10 tell Men who would not think of cheating their grocer their butcher never paid doctors bill, while many others cheated not only butcher and baker, but everybody else that would give them credit. Practice had been plentiful but cash was mighty scarce, and poor Smith had often been without the i've cents to get himself a sand wich.
 Brown very dolefully reported that he had not even had the practice He had lived there day by day in his arstocratic neighborhood and had never had-a call. The elegant equipages of successful doctors had passed him and repassed him, and had called next door, and next block, and next street but no calls came for Brown. Life had only been possible for him by borrowing from friends and getting supplies from home.