The Redwood gazette. [volume] (Redwood Falls, Minn.) 1873-1940, 1904-11-09
THE DOCTOR
AND THE NURSE
~ FRANZ H. SWEET
tcopyright. 1904. By Dali story Pub. CO.,


attention. Send the inclosed list Of my
patients to DR.. Taylor at the junction.
1t describes their condition and the
general course of treatment which l.
have pursued, so he will understand.
He will have to take charge of them
for the present Gather UP the papers
and odds and ends in my office and put
IN my desk. In case / never return
send them to my brother at Coalville.
In the same possible contingency also
send the little package in the secret
drawer of my desk to Miss Ethel Wiz
goss at address given.
ARTHUR CAMERON.
"P. ST. am at Lonesome Valley"
There was no need of explanation be-
yond the postscript. That told the
whole story, and they followed out the
instructions of the note with grave
faces for during the four years he had
been among them all the people of the
little farming village and surrounding
mountainous country had grown to like
young DR.. Cameron.
Lonesome Valley contained 20 or
more families of the most shiftless and
poverty-stricken sort. They only work
ed when work was absolutely necessary
TO keep them from starving, and. the
matter Of raiment and shelter was of
secondary and slight Importance. When
a man or boy was without ambition
and too lazy to work he was advised to
go to Lonesome Valley, for only to such
as he did it hold forth inducements.
There was nothing busy at Lonesome
Valley, no order, no emulation, no oc-
cupation, not even any sanitary condi-
ton And now the hour of its retribu-
ton had come, for a frightful epidemic
OF smallpox had broken out, from
which report said not one house had es-
capped
There were few doctors in the sparse
Iy settled country, and the people were
usually too poor to hire trained nurses
for their own families. So all they felt
they could do for themselves and the
valley was to surround the infested dis
trict with a Gordon Charmed men under
peremptory orders to prevent any one
escaping, and to place provisions where
those within the line could reach them.
But no communication of any kind
should pass between the valley and the
world outside; no person D'ust leave,
and IL one should slip in he must re-
main until the end And the terror
of the country was so great that these
laws would be rigidly enforced.
The valley had always been isolated
and Stunned, an ulcer upon the coun-
try, and the plague hau been raging
a week before the lethargic inhabitants
awoke to its nature and rumor of it
got outside DR.. Cameron was away
visiting some of his more distant
mountain patients, and it was several
days before he returned. When he did,
he went promptly to investigate the
condition of the valley, and was shock
ed at the real state of affairs There
was urgent need for nurses and physi-
clans; but nurses could not be gotten
from the reighborhood, and there was
no money to hire trained ones; and he
was the only physician available, for
DR.. Taylor was too old. So he sent back
his horse with the note and set to
work. He was young and strong, with
trained courage and muscles, and with
almost inexhaustible vitality. He must
be physician and nurse himself, for
no others would come.
There were ten cases when he enter
ed the valley, and so people whose
vild, unreasoning terror was reducing
them to the condition of easy future
victims. He quickly organized the
more capable of them into nurses and
assistants, and set the others to help
ing establish such sanitary precautions
as were still possible. They were all
very pliable now in their terror, and
chung about him with incoherent be-
seedlings for medicine to save them
from the dreaded disease When they
were made to understand that it was
sanitary conditions and personal clean
illness more than drugs, aud that they
must try to control their terror ana
try to face the situation calmly, they
sought to meet his instructions and
wishes, so far as such natures as theirs
were capable. In weeA the ten pa
tients were 20, and in another week
nearly 20 more, and then some of them
began to die, ano some to convalesce.
To his other duties DR.. Cameron had
to add that of undertaken and help pre-
pare the dead for burial, and to assist
in digging the graves. Not even in this
work could the shiftless inhabitants
be trusted by themselves.
One day as he was showing a man
about digging a drain, he heard the
hoofbeats of horse, and looked up TO
see woman riding toward him Think
ing her stranger to the vicinity and
unaware of the danger, he threw up
mis- arms in peremptory motion for
her to go back. But the woman, in
turn, made gesture Of dissent and
came straight on. AS she dropped light
lJ from the horse his sharp reprimand
was stifled in an amazed:
"Ethel-Miss Wilgoss!''
"Dr. Cameron!" in an equally
amazed. voice from the wOman's Inns