The Funny Side of Physic Part 57

[Ill.u.s.tration: TEN YEARS LATER.]

With these thoughts I confidently knocked at the door. "Is Miss ---- at home?" I inquired of the--servant, I supposed, who opened the door. Just then three or four dirty-looking little children ran screaming after the woman, calling out, "Marm, marm!"

"Hush, children, hus.h.!.+" said the female, and, turning again to me, said,--

"Whom did you inquire for?" pus.h.i.+ng back one of the red-headed urchins.

"Miss Mary ----, ma'am," I answered. "She once lived at Blue Hill."

She gave a sickly-looking smile. She looked sick before; her cheeks all fallen in; her skimmed-milk colored eyes had a weary, anxious expression; and her thin, bony hands, resting on the door-latch, looked like a consumptive's, as she said,--

"When did you know her?"

"O, but a few years ago, ma'am. Is she here? Does she live in _this house_?" I eagerly inquired.

"Well," she replied, with another more sepulchral smile,

"I was once Miss Mary ----. I married Mr. ---- ----, over ten years ago.

My baby, here,"--presenting the second in size of the children to my view, a reddish-brown haired girl, quite unlike any one I had ever seen before, and wiping its nose with her calico ap.r.o.n,--"she is named for me, Mary ----. Won't you come in, sir?"

No, I thought I would not stop. I didn't stop till I reached the hotel, where I had begged the stage-driver to wait for me but a half hour before, while I called upon the lovely Miss Mary ----.

"O, sunny dreams of childhood, How soon they pa.s.s away!

Like flowers within the wild wood, They perish and decay."

A HANDY DOCTOR.

A young physician was supposed to be "keepin' company" with a young lady.

The matronly friend of the latter, having praised the young man from all points of view, returned one day from the death-bed of a friend, at which the physician had been present. She eulogized the living fully as much as the dead man, and finally turning to the girl, as if she had reached the _ne plus ultra_ of enthusiasm, she said, "Jane, he's the handsomest man I ever see fixin' round a corpse."

A DOCTOR'S STORY.

The writer is acquainted with a young physician, who read medicine with an old doctor, named Gitchel, or Twichel, of Portland, and commenced practice in his native village,--a great mistake for any pract.i.tioner to make,--and where he met with consequences natural to even a prophet, opposition and scandal. By some mistake, or, as his opponents charged, mal-practice, he lost a patient. Being, a few days later, in a shop in the next village, he was secretly informed that the "hounds of the law were after him--even at the next door, that very moment." Terrified beyond necessity, he caught up his medicine chest, and, climbing out of the back window, fled to the woods. In the village, at home, he had courted a lovely young girl, with whom he had exchanged vows. She knew the talk that was going on respecting the young doctor, but she believed it not, or, believing, clung the firmer to her pledges.

[Ill.u.s.tration: FLIGHT OF THE DOCTOR.]

"After night fell I left the woods, and took to the highway. To go home I was afraid. O, had I but braved the doctors, and defied the lawyers, all would have been well," he told me afterwards. "But I had received such ill treatment, been scandalized so severely, that I was cowed to the earth. I knew not if my life, my Angie, had also turned against me, when the news was spread that I had tacitly admitted my crime by fleeing.

"I went to W., hundreds of miles away. I took a new name, and put out my s.h.i.+ngle. I was at once patronized, and soon extensively; but I was morose and unhappy. I was offered a home and a wife. I had as good as a wife away in my far-off home; I was bound to her, and I _loved_ her as I _hated my own soul_! I dared not write to her, nor go to her. 'O, my G.o.d, what shall I do?' I cried, in my misery. He did not hear me, and I came to believe that _He was not_!

"Thus a whole year wore away, and I had not heard from home. Finally, I determined to make an attempt to see my Angie. I had, after going to W., allowed my heavy beard to go uncropped, which I had never done at home. I wore no clothes that I brought away with me from home. I purchased a few knickknacks, put on a slouched hat, and appeared in my native village as a peddler. Unless my voice betrayed me, I had no fears of detection. To prevent this mishap I kept a silver coin in my mouth when talking.

"I had called at several houses, but could learn nothing of my betrothed, without fear of exciting suspicion by too close inquiries. I therefore, unable longer to stand the suspense, entered her father's house. She and her mother only were at home. I could scarcely suppress my feelings as I beheld her, the idol of my heart. When I spoke, she started to her feet, and with staring countenance gazed fixedly upon me. Then she fell back into her chair.

[Ill.u.s.tration: FLIGHT OF THE LOVERS.]

[Ill.u.s.tration: THE LOVER AS A PEDDLER.]

"My G.o.d, she did not know me.

"The mother noticed how pale the girl looked, and proposed to get her a drink of water from the porch.

"'No, no, I am not faint.'

"'Yes, yes,' I articulated, with the coin in my mouth; 'get her some water.'

"Away went the old lady, and, dropping my basket and spitting out the coin, I cried, 'Angie, Angie, bless you, my darling,' and fell kneeling at her feet.

"'O, Charley, it is you,--the Lord be praised!--come at last.'

"I sprang to my feet. There was time to say no more. The mother returned and looked wistfully about.

"'I thought I heard some one saying, "Charley, Charley,"' she said, presenting the water to Angie, who was now flushed and excited. I was searching for my coin.

"'O, the water is warm. Mother, dear, do go to the well in the yard, and get some fresh; and look to see if there is anybody outside calling.' And away went the old lady.

"'Now, Charley, what brought you back? And why did you stay? And--'

"'Wait, wait. Number nine boots brought me. I've come for you, Angie.'

"'You will be arrested if you are seen here, I am afraid,' she said.

"'Then meet me to-night at ---- Crossing, and fly with me.'

"I then told her how I had lived, how I had suffered, and how much I loved her; and she consented to marry me, and secretly go away with me. But the difficulty now lay in getting a lawful man to marry us. The license could be bought; I was certain of that. So I went away and obtained it. I next hired a horse and carriage, and paid for it in advance, to go twelve miles.

"'Aren't you Charley ----?' asked the stable man, eying me sharply, as I was about to drive away to get Angie, that night.

"'Take this,'--and I gave him a gold piece,--'and ask no questions, nor answer any, till you see your horse and carriage safely back,' was my reply.

"As we drove out of the village, I heard wagon wheels far behind us.

Reaching the woods, I drove into a wood road, and the 'hounds of the ---- doctors' rode fiercely past. Angie trembled for my safety. I reached a cross road. The moon shone quite brightly, and, jumping from the buggy, I soon found, by the fresh track, which road they had taken. I took a different. So I reached a train that night, and rode till morning; arrived at W. the next, and was married."

It was at W. that I found him first. He was smart. He had a good memory.

He was a handsome man, full six feet in his stockings. In all, his address was not excelled by any physician with whom I have ever met. He is now an excellent physician and surgeon, in a large city, in good practice. When he returned on a visit to his native village, as he did last year, the affair had blown over; for after a man is honored abroad, he may become so at home,--seldom before. I wish him happiness and prosperity.

"There is no greater rogue than he who marries only for money; no greater fool than he who marries only for love. I could marry any lady I like, if I would only take the trouble," Dr. Macilvain heard an old fellow say. Of course, n.o.body but a conceited old bachelor would have said that, who needs a woman to just take some of the self-conceit out of him.

ENGLISH DOCTORS AS BEAUS.

Some of the old English doctors were gay fellows amongst the ladies, according to the best authorities. Nevertheless, few men have arrived at eminence in the medical profession who were known to be afflicted with an overplus of romantic or sentimental qualities in their composition.

It may be interesting, particularly to ladies, to know that the majority of those physicians who have arrived at the dignity of knighthood owe their elevation rather to the smiles of love than the rewards of professional efforts. "Considering the opportunities that medical men have for pressing a suit in love, and the many temptations to gentle emotion that they experience in the aspect of female suffering, and the confiding grat.i.tude of their fair patients, it is to be wondered at that only one medical duke is to be found in the annals of the peerage." But the physician usually has quite sufficient self-control and honor about him, not only to keep his own tender sensibilities in subjection, but often to check those of his grateful and emotional female patient.

Thackeray has said that "girls of rank make love in the nursery, and practise the arts of coquetry upon the page boy who brings up the coals and kindlings."