The Story of a Doctor's Telephone Part 35

"Jake Gray, if that's you, you're a mean eavesdroppin' sneak an' that's what I think of _you_! Good-bye, Nettie." And as the receiver slammed into its place the doctor shook with laughter.

"This seems to be my opportunity," he thought, then rang and delivered the message to his wife. Often these dialogues kept him from hearing or delivering some important message and then he fumed inwardly, but tonight he had time to spare and to laugh.

After a little the 'phone rang. "It's someone wanting you, Doctor," said the man of the house who answered it. The doctor went.

"Is this you, Doctor Blank?"

"Yes."

"I want you--"

The doctor heard no more. This was a party line and every receiver on it came down. A dozen people were listening to find out who wanted the doctor and what for. All on the line knew that Doctor Blank had been at the Gray farmhouse for hours. The message being private, there was silence. The doctor waited a minute then his wrath burst forth.

"d.a.m.n it! Hang up your receivers, all you eavesdroppers, so I can get this message!"

Click, click, click, click, and lots of people mad, but the doctor got the message.

Ting-a-ling-ling-ling.

"Is this Mrs. Blank?"

"Yes."

"I telephoned the office and couldn't get the doctor so I'll tell you what I wanted and you can tell him. His patient down here in the country, Mrs. Miller, is out of powders and she wants him to send some down by Mrs. Richards, if he can find her."

"Where is Mrs. Richards?"

"She's up there in town somewhere."

"Does she know that the powders are to be sent by her and will she call at the office?"

"No, I don't think she knows anything about it. Mrs. Miller didn't know she was out till after she left. That's all," and she was gone.

"All!" echoed Mary.

In a few minutes when she thought her husband had had time to return she went to the 'phone and told him he must go out and hunt up Mrs.

Richards.

"What for?"

"Because Mrs. Miller wants you to find her and send some powders down by her."

An explosion came and Mary retired laughing and marvelling to what strange uses telephones--and doctors--are put.

CHAPTER XII.

It was a lovely morning in late September. The sun almost shone through the film of light gray clouds which lay serenely over all the heavens.

There was a golden gleam in the atmosphere,

"And a tender touch upon everything As if Autumn remembered the days of Spring."

The doctor and his wife were keenly alive to the beauty of the day.

After they had driven several miles they stopped before a little brown house. The doctor said he would like Mary to go in and she followed him into the low-ceiled room.

"Here, you youngsters, go out into the yard," said the mother of the children. "There ain't room to turn around when you all get in." They went. A baby seven or eight months old sat on the floor and stared up at Mary as she seated herself near it. Two women of the neighborhood sat solemnly near by. The doctor approached the bed on which a young woman of eighteen or twenty years was lying.

"My heart hain't beat for five minutes," she said.

"Is that so?" said the doctor, quite calm in the face of an announcement so startling. "Well, we'll have to start it up again."

"That's the first time she has spoke since yesterday morning," said one of the solemn women in a low tone to the doctor.

"It didn't hurt her to keep still. She could have spoken if she had wanted to." The two women looked at each other. "No, she couldn't speak, Doctor," said one of them.

"Oh, yes she could," replied the doctor with great nonchalance.

"I _couldn't_!" said the patient with much vigor. This was just what he wanted. He examined her carefully but said not a word.

"How long do you think I'll live?" she asked after a little.

"Well, that's a hard question to answer--but you ought to be good for forty or fifty years yet."

The patient sniffed contemptuously. "Huh, I guess you don't know it all if you _are_ a doctor."

"I know enough to know there's mighty little the matter with _you_." He turned to one of the women. "I would like to see her mother," he said.

The mother had left the room on an errand; the woman rose and went out.

There was a pause which Mary broke by asking the baby's name.

"We think we'll call her Orient."

"Why not Occident?" thought Mary, but she kept still. Not so the doctor.

"_That's_ no name. Give her a good sensible _name_--one she won't be ashamed of when she's a woman."

Here Mary caught sight of a red string around the baby's neck, and asked if it was a charm of some sort. The mother took hold of the string and drew up the charm. "It's a blind hog's tooth," she said simply, "to make her cut her teeth easy."

The mother of the patient came into the room. "How do you think she is, Doctor?"

"Oh, she's not so sick as you thought she was, not near."

The mother looked relieved. "She had an awful bad spell last night. Do you think she won't have any more?"