The End of the World: A Love Story
CHAPTER XX.
THE STEAM-DOCTOR.
To return to the house of Samuel Anderson.
Scarcely had August passed out the door when Mrs. Anderson fell into afit of hysterics, and declared that she was dying of heart-disease. Hertime had come at last! She was murdered! Murdered by her own daughter'singratitude and disobedience! Struck down in her own house! And whatgrieved her most was that she should never live to see the end ofthe world!
And indeed she seemed to be dying. Nothing is more frightful than a goodsolid fit of hysterics. Cynthy Ann, inwardly condemning herself as shealways did, lifted the convulsed patient, who seemed to be anywhere inher last ten breaths, and carried her, with Mr. Anderson's aid, down toher room, and while Jonas saddled the horse, Mr. Anderson put on his hatand prepared to go for the doctor.
"Samuel! O Sam-u-el! Oh-h-h-h-h!" cried Mrs. Anderson, with rising andfalling inflections that even patient Dr. Rush could never haveanalyzed, laughing insanely and weeping piteously in the same breath, inthe same word; running it up and down the gamut in an uncontrolled anduncontrollable way; now whooping like a savage, and now sobbing like thelast breath of a broken-hearted. "Samuel! Sam-u-el! O Samuel! Ha! ha!ha! h-a-a! Oh-h-h-h-h-h-h! You won't leave me to die alone! After thewife I've been to you, you won't leave me to die alone! No-o-o-o-o!HOO-HOO-oo-OO! You musn't. You shan't. Send Jonas, and you stay by me!Think--" here her breath died away, and for a moment she seemed reallyto be dying. "Think," she gasped, and then sank away again. After aminute she opened her eyes, and, with characteristic pertinacity, tookup the sentence just where she had left off. She had carefully kept herplace throughout the period of unconsciousness. But now she spoke, notwith a gasp, but in that shrill, unnatural falsetto so characteristic ofhysteria; that voice--half yell--that makes every nerve of the listenerjangle with the discord. "Think, oh-h-h Samuel! why won't you think whata wife I've been to you? Here I've drudged and scrubbed and scrubbed anddrudged all these years like a faithful and industrious wife, neverneglecting my duty. And now--oh-h-h-h--now to be left alone in my--"Here she ceased to breathe again for a while. "In my last hours to die,to die! to die with, out--without--Oh-h-h!" What Mrs. Anderson was leftto die without she never stated. Mr. Anderson had beckoned to Jonas whenhe came in, and that worthy had gone off in a leisurely trot to get the"steam-doctor."
"CORN-SWEATS AND CALAMUS."]
Dr. Ketchup had been a blacksmith, but bard work disagreed with hisconstitution. He felt that he, was made for something better thanshoeing horses. This ambitious thought was first suggested to him by theincreasing portliness of his person, which, while it made stooping overa horse's hoof inconvenient, also impressed him with the fact that hisaldermanic figure would really adorn a learned profession. So he boughtone of those little hand-books which the founder of the Thomsoniansystem sold dirt-cheap at twenty dollars apiece, and which told how tocure or kill in every case. The owners of these important treasures ofinvaluable information were under bonds not to disclose the profoundsecrets therein contained, the fathomless wisdom which taught them howto decide in any given case whether ginseng or a corn-sweat was therequired remedy. And the invested twenty dollars had brought the shrewdblacksmith a handsome return.
"Hello!" said Jonas in true Western style, as he reined up in front ofDr. Ketchup's house in the outskirts of Brayville. "Hello the house!"But Dr. Ketchup was already asleep. "Takes a mighty long time to wake upa fat man," soliloquized Jonas. "He gits so used to hearin' hisselfsnore that he can't tell the difference 'twixt snorin' and thunder.Hello! Hello the house! I say, hello the blacksmith-shop! Dr. Ketchup,why don't you git up? Hello! Corn-sweats and calamus! Hello! Whoop!Hurrah for Jackson and Dr. Ketchup! Hello! Thunderation! Stop thief!Fire! Fire! Fire! Murder! Murder! Help! Help! Hurrah! Treed the coonat last!"
This last exclamation greeted the appearance of Dr. Ketchup's head atthe window.
"Are you drunk, Jonas Harrison? Go 'way with your hollering, or I'llhave you took up," said Ketchup.
"You'll find that tougher work than making horseshoes any day, myrespectable friend and feller-citizen. I'll have you took up fersleeping so sound and snorin' so loud as to disturb all creation and therest of your neighbors. I've heard you ever sence I left Anderson's, andthought 'twas a steamboat. Come, my friend, git on your clothes andaccouterments, fer Mrs. Anderson is a-dyin' or a-lettin' on to bea-dyin' fer a drink of ginseng-tea or a corn-sweat or some otherdecoction of the healin' art. Come, I fotch two hosses, so you shouldn'tlose no time a saddlin' your'n, though I don't doubt the ole woman'd gitwell ef you never gin her the light of your cheerful count'nance.She'd git well fer spite, and hire a calomel-doctor jist to make youmad. I'd jest as soon and a little sooner expect a female wasp to die ofheart-disease as her."
"FIRE! MURDER!! HELP!!!"]
The head of Dr. Ketchup had disappeared from the window about the middleof this speech, and the remainder of it came by sheer force of internalpressure, like the flowing of an artesian well.
Dr. Ketchup walked out, with ruffled dignity, carefully dressed. Hisimmaculate clothes and his solemn face were the two halves of his stockin trade. Under the clothes lay buried Ketchup the blacksmith; under thewiseacre face was Ketchup the ignoramus. Ignoramus he was, but not afool. As he rode along back with Jonas, he plied the latter withquestions. If he could get the facts of the case out of Jonas, he wouldpretend to have inferred them from the symptoms and thus add tohis credit.
"What caused this attack, Jonas?"
"I 'low she caused it herself. Generally does, my friend," said Jonas.
"Had anything occurred to excite her?"
"Well, yes, I 'low they had; consid'able, if not more."
"What was it?"
"Well, you see she'd been to Hankins's preachin'. Now, I 'low, mymedical friend, the day of jedgment a'n't a pleasin' prospeck to anybodythat's jilted one brother to marry another, and then cheated the jiltedone outen his sheer of his lamented father's estate. Do you think it is,my learned friend?"
But Dr. Ketchup could not be sure whether Jonas was making game of himor not. So he changed the subject.
"Nice hoss, this bay," said the "doctor."
"Well, yes," said Jonas, "I don't 'low you ever put shoes on no betterhoss than this 'ere in all your days--as a blacksmith. Did you now, mymedical friend?"
"No, I think not," said Ketchup testily, and was silent.
Mrs. Anderson had grown impatient at the doctor's delay. "Samuel! Oo!oo! oo! Samuel! My dear, I'm dying. Jonas don't care. He wouldn't hurry.I wonder you trusted _him!_ If you had been dying, I should have gonemyself for the doctor. Oo! oo! oo! _oh!_ If I should die, nobody wouldbe sorry."
Abigail Anderson was not to blame for telling the truth so exactly inthis last sentence. It was an accident. She might have recalled it butthat Dr. Ketchup walked in at that moment.
He felt her pulse; looked at her tongue; said that it was heart-disease,caused by excitement. He thought it must be religious excitement. Sheshould have a corn-sweat and some wafer-ash tea. The corn-sweat wouldact as a tonic and strengthen the pericardium. The wafer-ash would causea tendency of blood to the head, and thus relieve the pressure on thejuggler-vein. Cynthy Ann listened admiringly to Dr. Ketchup'sincomprehensible, oracular utterances, and then speedily put a bushel ofear-corn in the great wash-boiler, which was already full of hot waterin expectation of such a prescription, and set the wafer-ash to draw.
Julia had, up to this time, stood outside her mother's door tremblingwith fear, and not daring to enter. She longed to do something, but didnot know how it would be received. Now, while the deep, sonorous voiceof Ketchup occupied the attention of all, she crept in and stood at thefoot of Mrs. Anderson's bed. The mother, recovering from her twentiethdying spell, saw her.
"Take her away! She has killed me! She wants me to die! _I_ know! Takeher away!"
And Julia went to her own room and shut herself up in darkness and inwretchedness, but in all that miserable night there came to her not oneregret that she
had reached her hand to the departing August.
The neighbor-women came in and pretended to do something for theinvalid, but really they sat by the kitchen-stove and pumped Cynthy Annand the doctor, and managed in some way to connect Julia with hermother's illness, and shook their heads. So that when Julia creptdown-stairs at midnight, in hope of being useful, she found herselflooked at inquisitively, and felt herself to be such an object ofattention that she was glad to take the advice of Cynthy Ann and findrefuge in her own room. On the stairs she met Jonas, who said asshe passed:
"Don't fret yourself, little turtle-dove. Don't pay no 'tention to oleKetchup. Your ma won't die, not even with his corn-sweats to waft her onto glory. You done your duty to-night like one of Fox's martyrs, andlike George Washi'ton with his little cherry-tree and hatchet. Andyou'll git your reward, if not in the next world, you'll have itin this."
Julia lay down awhile, and then sat up, looking out into the darkness.Perhaps God was angry with her for loving August; perhaps she was makingan idol of him. When Julia came to think that her love for August was inantagonism to the love of God, she did not hesitate which she wouldchoose. All the best of her nature was loyal to August, whom she "hadseen," as the Apostle John has it. She could not reason it out, but aGod who seemed to be in opposition to the purest and best emotion of herheart was a God she could not love. August and the love of August wereknown quantities. God and the love of God were unknown, and the God ofwhom Cynthy spoke (and of whom many a mistaken preacher has spoken),that was jealous of Mrs. Pearson's love for her baby, and that killed itbecause it was his rival, was not a God that she could love withoutbeing a traitor to all the good that God had put in her heart. The Godthat was keeping August away from her because he was jealous of the onebeautiful thing in her life was a Moloch, and she deliberatelydetermined that she would not worship or love him. The True God, who isa Father, and who is not Supreme Selfishness, doing all for His ownglory, as men falsely declare; the True God--who does all things for thegood of others--loved her, I doubt not, for refusing to worship theConventional Deity thus presented to her mind. Even as He has pitiedmany a mother that rebelled against the Governor of the Universe,because she was told the Governor of the Universe, in a petty seekingfor his own glory, had taken away her "idols."
But Julia looked up at the depths between the stars, and felt how greatGod must be, and her rebellion against Him seemed a war at fearful odds.And then the sense of God's omnipresence, of His being there alone withher, so startled her and awakened such a feeling of her fearfulloneliness, orphanage, antagonism to God, that she could bear it nolonger, and at two o'clock she went down again; but Mrs. Brown lookedover at Mrs. Orcutt in a way that said: "Told you so! Guilty conscience!Can't sleep!" And so Julia thought God, even as she conceived Him,better company than men, or rather than women, for--well, I won't makethe ungallant remark; each sex has its besetting faults.
Julia took back with her a candle, thinking that this awful God wouldnot seem so close if she had a light. There lay on her bureau aTestament, one of those old editions of the American Bible Society,printed on indifferent paper, and bound in a red muslin that was givento fading, the like whereof in book-making has never been seen since.She felt angry with God, who, she was sure, was persecuting her, asCynthy Ann had said, out of jealousy of her love for August, and she wasdetermined that she would not look into that red-cloth Testament, whichseemed to her full of condemnation. But there was a fascination about itshe could not resist. The discordant hysterical laughter of her mother,which reached her ears from below, harrowed her sorely, and her griefand despair at her own situation were so great that she was at last fainto read the only book in the room in order that she might occupy hermind. There is a strange superstition among certain pietists which loadsthem to pray for a text to guide them, and then take any chance passageas a divine direction. I do not mean to say that Julia had anysupernatural leading in her reading. The New Testament is so full ofcomfort that one could hardly manage to miss it. She read the seventhchapter of Luke: how the Lord healed the centurion's servant that was"dear unto him," and noted that He did not rebuke the man for loving hisslave; how the Lord took pity on that poor widow who wept at the bier ofher only son, and brought him back to life again, and "restored him tohis mother." This did not seem to be just the Christ that Cynthy Annthought of as the foe of every human affection. She read more that shedid not understand so well, and then at the end of the chapter she readabout the woman that was a sinner, that washed His feet with gratefultears and wiped them with her hair. And she would have taken the woman'sguilt to have had the woman's opportunity and her benediction.
At last, turning over the leaves without any definite purpose, shelighted on a place in Matthew, where three verses at the end of achapter happened to stand at the head of a column. I suppose she readthem because the beginning of the page and the end of the chapter madethem seem a short detached piece. And they melted into her mood so thatshe seemed to know Christ and God for the first time. "Come unto me allye that labor and are heavy laden," she read, and stopped. That meansme, she thought with a heart ready to burst. And that saying is thegateway of life. When the promises and injunctions mean me, I am saved.Julia read on, "And I will give you rest." And so she drank in thepassage, clause by clause, until she came to the end about an easy yokeand a light burden, and then God seemed to her so different. She prayedfor August, for now the two loves, the love for August and the love forChrist, seemed not in any way inconsistent. She lay down saying over andover, with tears in her eyes, "rest for your souls," and "weary andheavy laden," and "come unto me," and "meek and lowly of heart," andthen she settled on one word and repeated it over and over, "rest, rest,rest." The old feeling was gone. She was no more a rebel nor an orphan.The presence of God was not a terror but a benediction. She had foundrest for her soul, and He gave His beloved sleep. For when she awokefrom what seemed a short slumber, the red light of a glorious dawn camein at the window, and her candle was flickering its last in the bottomof the socket. The Testament lay open as she had left it, and for daysshe kept it open there, and did not dare read anything but these threeverses, lest she should lose the rest for her soul that she found here.