Authors: James Gould Cozzens
She had come to her feet slowly, as though automatically impelled; perhaps with the thoughtless plan of going to see Joe herself. George Bull could see the glitter of her eyes as they filled with tears. She sat down again then, facing away from him towards the switchboard. The book fell, and stopping sharply, she recovered it.
"Well, that's medical science for you,"' he said. "Ring Aunt Myra when you get around to it. Tell her I won't be home to supper. And tell anyone who calls up that I'll come when I can, and not before."
Back at the car, he turned it about, to go over to the Vogels'; but when he reached the corner, he drove on by, continuing to the end of the green. Turning right, he crossed the railroad, bumped away from New Winton between the lower fields. At the fork he changed gears, crawling loud and slow, his headlights rising, tipping along the fence ahead of him in the dusk, up the hill to Janet's.
The long mound of the barn, the upright cylindrical masses of the twin silos, were solid and dark against the shrouded valley, the black wall of the western hills. In the western sky a pure cold last radiance, the colour of sea-water in a glass, remained. Lights were on up the slope in the Rogers' cottage and in the kitchen windows of the Cardmaker house. Above the near crest of the Cobble—and, in perspective, hardly higher, the summit of Cold Hill—the eastern night was patterned brightly by the spring constellations; the rising train of the Bear; in serene splendour, the great yellow star Arcturus on the valley's edge.
George Bull stood a moment regarding it, for Bootes was one constellation he could remember. Mechanically he said: "Canst thou bring forth Mazzaroth in his season? or canst thou guide Arcturus with his sons?" God, by His mighty works, convinceth Job of ignorance, and of imbecility!
The Reverend Ephraim Bull used them too. Standing in the darkness of a Michigan road, he found strange testimony to the truth of scripture in teaching little George to recognize the eternal stars recommended to Job; and to the awfulness of God's creation, when the light of this Arcturus, moving a hundred and eighty-six thousand miles a second, took forty years to arrive.
"And so what?" said George Bull heavily; for he could see well enough what bad sense and worse logic the old man had once terrified him into considering wisdom.
There was a sound now of the kitchen door opening and Janet stood against the light. Her deep, arresting voice called calmly, "Who's there?"
George Bull approached and she said, "I thought it was your car. What's wrong?"
"Just thinking," he said. "Got anything to eat?"
"Come on."
Closing the door after him, she said, "Sit down, George. You look about all in."
"Guess I am. Fooling around our hospital all afternoon. We've got nineteen of the cases there. Helps some, but a lot of others are too sick to move, even if we had room."
"I hear Ralph Kimball died."
"That's right. Yesterday we lost Larry Ward. Well, there'll be more. That's a kind of fate for you! We have about forty-three or -four cases. The mortality is about seventeen per cent.—this is a virulent strain all right, so it won't be any less than average. Consequently we're going to have seven or eight deaths. That's perfectly certain. Only question is, who'll they be?"
"Want a drink?"
"I guess not. Got myself shot full of vaccine. Doesn't go so well."
"I'll heat you up a tin of beef broth. Mrs. Foster roasted a couple of chickens this afternoon. Want one of them?"
"Fine."
Without rising, he worked his shoulders out of his coat. Janet had got a can of soup from the pantry. She snapped the switches of the electric range and found a can opener. "What's this about a town meeting to-morrow?" she asked.
"Hadn't heard, but, I guess, nothing about it. Never is."
"You'd better go to it, George."
"Why?"
"You ought to keep an eye on these people you're so fond of. It's going to be about you this time."
"What about me?"
"They're trying to run you out, George. They mean business. Harold told me. Cadbury and Herring have been going around all week lining people up. Haven't you noticed anything?"
"Nothing that worries me. Sure, a few soreheads. Had a set-to with Joel Parry last Saturday. Tuesday we were arranging to have Mrs. Talbot sent over to Middletown and that old jackass Clarence was objecting. We had a couple of words."
"What I hear sounds like a panic. Watch out, George."
"Sure, but who can help that? My God, you'd think it was the bubonic plague, to see some of them carrying on. Probably eighty out of a hundred typhoid cases will get well without any treatment or cold baths or nonsense. At least fifteen will die anyway. That means you might have five cases to fool with. If you don't happen to kill them, perhaps you'll cure them. Verney was showing me all the figures. Huh! It's funny what a point of view does for you. An old horse doctor like me looks at them, and all he can see is that medical science is perfectly useless in ninety-five out of every hundred cases. When Verney sees them he thinks the other five show how wonderful whatever tricks happen to be in style are."
"Still getting on with him?"
"Sure. He's helped a lot. Of course he's upset over the Banning girl. Sort of embarrassed about missing the diagnosis. When he's as old as I am, he won't mind so much; but now he thinks it's a personal affront to his modern equipment and all those degrees of his. What are people going to think of him? When he realizes they aren't going to think of him at all until they decide they're dying, he'll take it easier."
Lifting the receiver, he said: "Doctor Verney speaking."
"Doctor, this is Miss Stanley."
"Yes; Miss Stanley."
"Doctor, I hate to trouble you, but Miss Valentine agrees with me that we'd better make sure. About twenty minutes ago the patient made a very sudden return to normal temperature, entirely clear-headed. There is a slight rise in respiration. She says her stomach hurts her. Now she hasn't been alone at all, not even a minute since noon, so I'm sure we haven't missed anything. And there hasn't been any sign of vomiting or hiccoughing. But the decline in temperature followed a two-point rise about six. I —"
"Right. I'm coming. Have you said anything to Mrs. Banning?"
"No, I haven't. I'm using an extension telephone, Doctor. I didn't want to —"
"Quite right. Don't.'"
The black car came down the exactly edged grey gravel into Stockade Street with a long sighing expiration of twelve cylinders in clock-like firing order. At the end the lights blinked in jewelled sequence: green, yellow, red. Doctor Verney touched his horn and passed unhesitatingly. Pulled to a sudden noiseless crawl by the confused traffic of Railroad Street, the horn rose up again, fretting at cars looking for a chance to park near the motion-picture theatre, cars putting erratically out from the kerb in front of lighted stores. Under the black and white striped, up-ended lances of the railroad gates, he took a soft swaying jolt, drew away down to the bridge like the wind. The cantilever fencing of beams rippled by. Snapped to the upper filaments, his strong headlights rose from the road, jumping a hundred feet ahead. Against the dark they found a small metal shield on a short steel upright; CONN. US6W. An exactly perpendicular concrete-footed post pointed three rigid arms north:
New Winton
13—
Litchfield
34—
Winsted
49.
On the outside lane a Ford truck seemed to come to a halt. He heard the working roar of its engine a second. In the mirror he could see its weak headlights retiring, jerked swiftly backwards as he slid over again.
Halting his car quietly in the circle of Bannings' drive, he came up to the side door without haste, fifteen minutes from Sansbury. To Mary, admitting him, he said: "Good evening. Tell Mrs. Banning I just wanted to look in a minute."
In the shaded light of the sick room, Miss Stanley produced for him a white gown from the bathroom. While he was fastening the buttons Virginia said, stirring a little, "Oh, hello."
Miss Stanley tilted her head, slightly raising her eyebrow. "Yes, I see," he agreed. "It's been about three-quarters of an hour?" She nodded. Miss Valentine, coming from Guy's room, appeared in the bathroom door. Doctor Verney drew up a chair by the bed. "Feeling better?" he asked.
"I feel all right." She turned her head on the pillow and the shaded light caught shining on her chin and cheek-bones. Her blue eyes regarded him, clear, enormously large above the concave lines of her cheeks. "Have I been sick long?" she said.
"Not very long."
"How long?"
"Oh, several days." Taking her wrist, he looked at the protruding emaciated point of the styloid process. Pretending to busy himself with the pulse, he counted the respirations through fifteen seconds.
"Have they gone yet?" Virginia said.
He smiled at the nurses. "Why, you don't want them to go, do you?"
"I don't mean them. I mean has Val gone? She has. I know. They were going Saturday. She told me, to-day is Friday."
"Don't you mind that. Wouldn't you rather go to Paris?"
"Yes. But how can I?"
"Your father told me that he was going to send you and Guy this summer."
"I don't want to go with Guy. I won't have any fun. He'll just be mean to me."
"I don't believe he will. You'll have a wonderful time." He glanced
at the windows. "I've had them closed for some time," Miss Stanley said. "It's about eight-one." She came and turned back the covers.
"I don't want that rotten thermometer," Virginia said with sudden energy. "I don't like it. Why can't you—"
"Now, Ginny! We aren't going to take your temperature. They tell me your stomach hurts you. I just want to look at it and we'll see if we can fix it up."
"It doesn't hurt any more."
"Well, it might start hurting again. We'd better see, hadn't we?"
"No."
He made a gesture to Miss Stanley. "There, there, dear," she said, "you must do what the doctor says if you want to get well. You know that, don't you? Now, you mustn't cry. You aren't going to cry, are you? It isn't going to hurt the least bit. I promise you it's not —-"
"I don't want people's hands all over me. I don't want people looking at me. I don't—.—"
"Peg——" said Miss Stanley. Miss Valentine took a handkerchief from the pile on the table. Shaking out a fold, she came and wiped Virginia's cheeks, remaining there, ready to prevent any movement. Virginia made none. The tears continued quietly, overflowing at her eyes' outer corners: "Why doesn't he get through?" she whispered finally. "Why won't he stop now —"
"Through in just a minute, Ginny," Doctor Verney said. "We just want to be sure. There. That's all. Everything's fine."
Miss Valentine covered her up again. To Miss Stanley, by the bathroom door, he said: "Not a sign. I'm sure it's all right. We might as well take a leucocyte count, but I'm positive there's been no perforation. We'll let her alone for a few minutes until she calms down."
"I was practically sure there wasn't," Miss Stanley said. "I really hated to call you. But —"
"I'd rather come out on twenty false alarms than miss the real thing by many hours. I think we'd better try feeding her more, if she can take it."
"I've been awfully worried about that, Doctor."
"See what you can do, even if you have to make it every hour. She's got to get some nourishment. I'll be in some time to-morrow morning, of course."
"You must be perfectly exhausted. I suppose old Mrs. Buck is still getting you up every other night."
"Poor old soul! I'm afraid she hasn't got much longer. You can reach me at the office until nine tomorrow. I'll be down at the Evarts' place here for a while after that."
"Why don't you take a day off? I'm worried about you, too."
He smiled. "I'm pretty tough. I'll try to get Moses over Sunday or Monday; but I can't leave Doctor Bull to handle the whole, business alone."
George Bull took the cup of hot soup, blew on it a moment while he watched the fire over the cup's rim. Sucking in a little, he grunted, "That's good."
Janet came out of the pantry with the chicken on a plate. "You can just pull it apart," she said. "Be careful. It's stuffed. I guess you could use a spoon for that."
"Fine. Give it here." He held out the empty cup to her.
"Matter of fact," he said, splitting off a leg from the chicken, "it's a lot of nonsense. Banning wants to make me the goat. Suppose he does? I don't care whether I'm Board of Health or not; but I'm damned if I'll give them the satisfaction of resigning. Let 'em do what they can. I'd like to see how much it is. I'd like to see them show it was my fault."
"Whose fault was it?"
He sank his teeth in, ripping most of the meat from the drumstick, and he was engaged a minute chewing it. "Whose fault's an earthquake?" he said finally. "If I'd gone wandering around the hill I might have made them put their latrines somewhere else." Upending the chicken, he dug out a tablespoonful of dressing and put it in his mouth. "And I might not have," he added with difficulty. "God alone knows how much dung a man gets down with his food every day." He twitched off the other leg. "Little more usually does no harm. It seems even possible that most of the traces of faecal pollution found in our water samples have nothing to do with the typhoid. Few of Joel Parry's cows wandering around loose could drop a couple of flops and give just the same effect. I'm not saying I have any better idea. I'm just saying it's practically impossible. The most they could have had was a carrier, and carriers generally don't infect that way. Verney's been looking it up. If they don't think I'm smart enough, let them ask him —"
"They're not going to ask anybody, George. Sometimes you don't show very good sense. They may say it's bad judgment, but even if it's really just bad luck, the result's the same. They say to themselves, 'We've been paying him money for years to see things like this don't happen to us.' They pay you so little money, you might think they understood that the whole pack of them weren't worth a great deal. But they don't understand that. They think taking care of them is a great honour, as well as your natural job, so why should you be wanting money, too?"