The Story of a Doctor's Telephone Part 33

"Yes."

"This is Mrs. Blank. I am very uneasy about the doctor, Mr. Felton. I hear he has just started down to the smallpox tent. Won't you please see that someone goes down at once?"

"Yes, Mrs. Blank. I came from there a little while ago but they're mad at the doctor and I'll go right back. I'm not going to bed until I know everything's quieted down."

"And you'll take others with you?" she pleaded, but the mayor was gone.

Again she waited in great anxiety. The tent was too far away for her to go out into the night in search of him.

Between eleven and twelve o'clock she heard footsteps. She rose and went to the door. Almost she expected to see her husband brought home on a stretcher. But there he came, walking with buoyant step. When he came in he kissed his anxious wife and then broke into a laugh.

"My! how good that sounds! I heard of the mob and have been frightened out of my wits."

"They've quieted down now. There wasn't a bit of sense in what they did."

"Well, I don't know that one can really blame them for not wanting smallpox brought into the neighborhood. Couldn't you have taken the tent farther out?"

"Yes, if we had had time. But we had a sick man on our hands--he had to be got out of the hotel and he had to be taken care of right away. He had to have a nurse. There must be water in the tent and the nurse can't be running out of a pest-house to get it. Neither can anyone carry it to such a place. So we couldn't put it beyond the water- and gas-pipes--there must be heat, too, you know. We have done the very best we could without more time. The nearest house is fifty yards away and there's absolutely no danger if the people down there will just get vaccinated and then keep away from the tent."

"They surely will do that."

"Some of them may. One fool said to me awhile ago when I told them that, 'Oh, yes! we see your game. You want to get a lot of money out of us.'"

"What did you say to that ancient charge," asked Mary, smiling.

"I said, 'My man, I'll pay for the virus, and I'll vaccinate everyone of you, and everyone in that neighborhood and it won't cost you a cent'."

"Did he look ashamed?"

"I didn't wait to see. I had urgent business out just then."

"Is the patient in the tent now?"

"Yes, all snug and comfortable with a nurse to take care of him. That was my urgent business. I went into the back room of the office in the midst of their jabber, slipped out the door, got into the buggy hitched back there, drove to the hotel and with Dr. Collins' help, got the patient down the ladder waiting for us, into the buggy, then got the nurse down the ladder and in, too, then away we drove lickety-cut for the tent while the mob was away from there. Then I went back to the office and attended the meeting," added the doctor, laughing heartily.

His wife laughed too, but rather uneasily. "Were they still there when you got back?"

"Every mother's son of 'em. They didn't stay long though. I advised them to go home, that the patient was in the tent and would stay there. They broke for the tent--vowed they'd set fire to it with him in it and I think they intended to hang _me_," and the doctor laughed again.

"John, don't _ever_ get into such a sc.r.a.pe again. I 'phoned Mr. Felton and begged him to go down there and take someone with him."

"You did? Well, he came, and it happened there was a member of the State Board of Health in town who had got on to the racket. He came, too, and you ought to have heard him read the riot act to those fellows:

"'We've got a sick man here--a stranger, far from his home. You are in no danger whatever. Every doctor in town has told you so. We're going to take care of this man _and don't you forget it_. We have the whole State of Illinois behind us, and if this d.a.m.ned foolishness don't stop right here, I'll have the militia here in a few hours' time and arrest every one of you.' That quieted them. They slunk off home and won't bother us any more."

Three or four days after the above conversation Mary stood at the window looking out at the storm which was raging. The wind was blowing fearfully and the rain coming down in torrents. "I do hope John will not be called to the country today," she thought.

Ting-a-ling-ling-ling--three rings.

"Is this Dr. Blank's office?" asked a feminine voice.

"No, his residence."

"Mrs. Blank, this is the nurse at the smallpox tent. Will you 'phone the office and tell the doctor it's raining in down here terribly. I'm in a hurry, must spread things over the patient."

"Very well, I'll 'phone him," and she rang twice. No reply. Again. No reply. "Too bad he isn't in. I'll have to wait a few minutes."

In five minutes she rang again, but got no reply. In another minute she was called to the 'phone.

"Didn't you get word to the doctor, Mrs. Blank?" asked a voice, full of anxiety. "I'm afraid we'll drown before he gets here."

"I have been anxiously watching for him, but he must be visiting a patient. Hold the 'phone please till I ring again." This time her husband answered.

"Doctor, here's the nurse at the tent to speak to you." She waited to hear what he would say.

"Doctor, please come down here and help us. The roof is leaking awfully and we are about to drown."

"All right, I'll be down after a little."

"Don't wait too long."

Mary's practised ear caught something beginning with a capital D as the receiver clicked.

"Poor old John," she murmured, "it's awful--the things you have to do."

The doctor got into his rubber coat and set out for his improvised pest-house.

When he came home Mary asked, "Did you stop the leak?"

"I did. But I had a devil of a time doing it."

"I'm curious to know how you would go about it."

"The roof was double and I had to straighten out and stretch the upper canvas with the wind blowing it out of my hands and n.o.body to help me hold it."

"Was there n.o.body in sight?"

"That infernal coward of a watchman, but I couldn't get him near the tent--he's _had_ smallpox, too."

"I should think the nurse could have helped a little, that is if she knew where to take hold of it, and what to do with it when she got hold."

"O, she sputtered around some and imagined she was helping."

"Poor thing," said Mary, laughing, "I know just how bewildered she was with you storming commands at her which she couldn't understand--women can't."

Ting-a-ling-ling-ling. Ting-a-ling-ling-ling. Ting-a-ling-ling-ling.