He was so pathetically anxious for a patient, after he had put his
table in place, hung up his sign, and paid for an announcement in
the county paper and the little Walden sheet, that Kate was sorry
for him.
On a hot July morning Mrs. Holt was sweeping the front porch when
a forlorn specimen of humanity came shuffling up the front walk
and asked to see Dr. Holt. Mrs. Holt took him into the office and
ran to the garden to tell George his first patient had come. His
face had been flushed from pulling weeds, but it paled perceptibly
as he started to the back porch to wash his hands.
"Do you know who it is, Mother?" he asked.
"It's that old Peter Mines," she said, "an' he looks fit to drop."
"Peter Mines!" said George. "He's had about fifty things the
matter with him for about fifty years."
"Then you're a made man if you can even make him think he feels
enough better so's he'll go round talking about it," said Mrs.
Holt, shrewdly.
George stood with his hands dripping water an instant, thinking
deeply.
"Well said for once, old lady," he agreed. "You are just exactly
right."
He hurried to his room, and put on his coat.
"A patient that will be a big boom for me," he boasted to Kate as
he went down the hall.
Mrs. Holt stood listening at the hall door. Kate walked around
the dining room, trying to occupy herself. Presently cringing
groans began to come from the room, mingling with George's deep
voice explaining, and trying to encourage the man. Then came a
wild shriek and then silence. Kate hurried out to the back walk
and began pacing up and down in the sunshine. She did not know
it, but she was praying.
A minute later George's pallid face appeared at the back door:
"You come in here quick and help me," he demanded.
"What's the matter?" asked Kate.
"He's fainted. His heart, I think. He's got everything that ever
ailed a man!" he said.
"Oh, George, you shouldn't have touched him," said Kate.
"Can't you see it will make me, if I can help him! Even Mother
could see that," he cried.
"But if his heart is bad, the risk of massaging him is awful,"
said Kate as she hurried after George.
Kate looked at the man on the table, ran her hand over the heart
region, and lifted terrified eyes to George.
"Do you think --?" he stammered.
"Sure of it!" she said, "but we can try. Bring your camphor
bottle, and some water," she cried to Mrs. Holt.
For a few minutes, they worked frantically. Then Kate stepped
back. "I'm scared, and I don't care who knows it," she said.
"I'm going after Dr. James."