A Guest at the Ludlow, and Other Stories

  A RUBBER ESOPHAGUS.

  XXVI

  Puget Sound is undoubtedly one of the most beautiful sheets of water inthe world. Its bosom is as unruffled as that of an angel who is opposedto ruffles on general principles.

  To say that real estate was once active at certain places on its shoresis just simply about as powerful as the remark made by the frontiersmanwho came home from his haying one afternoon and found that the Indianshad burned up his buildings, massacred his wife, driven off his milchcows and killed his children. He looked over the bloody scene and thensaid to himself with great feeling; "This, it seems to me, is perfectlyridiculous."

  I once drove about Seattle for two days with a real estate man, notbuying, but just riding and enjoying the scenery while we allowedprices gently to advance and our whiskers to grow. Finally I asked himif he knew of a real "snap," as Herbert Spencer would call it, withinthe reach of a poor man. He said that there was a bargain out towardsLake Washington, and if I wanted to see it we could go out there. I saidI should like to see it, for, if really desirable, I might buy someoutside property. We drove quite awhile through the primeval forest, andafter baiting our team and eating some lunch which we had with us, weresumed our journey, scaring up a bear on the way, which I was assured,however, was a tame bear. At last we tied the team, and, walking overthe ridge, we found a lot facing west, seventy-three feet front, whichcould be had then at $1,500. I don't suppose you could get it at thatprice now, for it is within a stone's throw of the power house and cablerunning from the city to Lake Washington.

  A friend of mine once told me how he lost a trade in Spokane Falls. Hehad the refusal for a week of a twenty-four-foot business lot "at $500."He thought and worried and prayed over it, and wrote home about it, andfinally decided to take it. On the last day of grace he counted up hismoney and finding that he had just the amount, he went over to theagent's office with it to close the trade.

  "Have you the currency with you to make the trade all cash?" asked theagent.

  "Yes, sir, I have the whole $500 in currency," said my friend, drawinghimself up to his full height and putting his cigar back a littlefurther in his cheek.

  "Five hundred dollars!" exclaimed the agent with a low, gurgling laugh;"the lot is $500 per front foot. I didn't suppose you were Pan-Americanass enough to think you could get a business lot in Spokane for $500.You can't get a load of sand for your children to play in at that rate."

  Once as my train passed a little red depot I saw a young squaw leaningup against the building, and crying. As we moved along I saw a plainblack coffin--a cheap affair of pine, daubed with walnut stain to makeit look still cheaper, I presume. I had never seen an Indian--even asquaw--weeping before, and so the picture remained with me a long time,and may for a long time yet to come.

  I've never been a pronounced friend of the Indian, as those who know mebest will agree. I have claimed that though he was first to locate inthis country, he did not develop the lead or do assessment work even, sothe thing was open to re-location. The white man has gone on and foundmineral in many places, made a big output, and is still working day andnight shifts, while the Indian is shiftless day and night, so far as Ihave observed.

  But when we see the poor devils buying our coffins for their dead, eventhough they may go very hungry for days afterwards, and, as they fadeaway forever as a people, striving to conform to our customs and wearsuspenders and join in prayer, common humanity leads us to thinksolemnly of their melancholy end.

  On that trip I met with a medical and surgical curiosity while on thecars. It consisted of a young man who was compelled to take hisnourishment through a rubber tube which led directly into his stomachthrough his side. I had heard of something like it and in my extensivemedical library had read of cases resembling it, but not entirely thesame. The conductor, who had shown me a great many little courtesiesalready, invited me into the baggage car, where he had the young man, inorder that I might see him.

  The subject was a German about twenty years of age, of dark complexionand phlegmatic temperament. He stood probably about five feet fourinches high in his stocking feet and did not attract me as a person ofprominence until the conductor informed me that he ate through the sideof his vest.

  It seems that about two years ago the boy had some little gastricdisturbance resulting from eating a nocturnal watermelon or callowcucumber. As I understand it, he, in an unguarded moment, called aphysician who aimed to be his own worst enemy, but who contrived to workin the public on the same basis, using no favoritism whatever. He was adoctor who has since gone into the gibbering industry in alcoholiccircles.

  So it happened that on the day he was called to the bedside of thisplain, juvenile colic, the enemy he had taken into his mouth the eveningbefore had, as a matter of fact, rifled his pseudo-brains, and beingbitterly disappointed in them, had no doubt failed to return them.

  Therefore "Doc," as he was affectionately called by the widowersthroughout the neighborhood, was entirely unfit to prescribe. He did so,however, just the same. That kind of a doctor is generally willing torush in where angels fear to tread. He cheerfully prescribed for theboy, and, in fact, filled the prescription himself. The principalingredient of this compound was carbolic acid. A man who can, bymistake, administer carbolic acid and not even smell it, must do histhinking by means of a sort of intellectual wart.

  But he did it, anyhow.

  So, after great suffering, the young fellow lost the use of his entireesophagus, the lining coming off as a result of this liquid holocaust,and then afterwards growing together again.

  The parents now decided to change physicians. So after giving "Doc" acow and settling up with him, another physician was called in. He saidthere was no way to reach the stomach but from the exterior, and,although hazardous, it might save the patient's life. Speedy action mustbe taken, however, as the young man was already getting up quite anappetite.

  I can imagine Old Man Gastric waiting there patiently, day after day,every little while looking at his watch, wondering, and singing:

  We are waiting, waiting, waiting,

  Finally, as he sits near the cardial orifice, where the sign has beenrecently put up,

  THE ELEVATOR IS NOT RUNNING,

  a light bursts through the walls of his house and he hears voices.Hastily throwing one of the coats of the stomach over his shoulders, hesprings to his feet just in time to catch about a nickel's worth ofwarm beef tea down the back of his neck.

  The patient now wears about two feet of inch hose, one end of which isintroduced into the upper and anterior lobe of the stomach. The other hehas embellished with a plain cork stopper. I asked him if he would joinme in a drink of water from the ice-cooler, and he said he would, underthe circumstances. He said that he had just taken one, but would notmind taking one more with me. He then removed the stopper from his newGoodyear esophagus, inserted a neat little tin funnel, with which he wasable to introduce the water. It gently settled down and disappeared inhis depths, and then, putting away the garden hose, he accepted a dollarand gave me a history of the case as I have set it forth above, orsubstantially so, at least.

  I could not help thinking of him afterward. I tried to imagine him onhis way to Europe over a stormy sea; the surprise of his stomach when itfound itself frustrated and beaten at its own game, and all that. Then Ithought of him as the honored guest of some great corporation or club,and at the banquet, when the president, in a few well-chosen words,apparently born of the moment but really wearing trousers, says,"Gentlemen, we have with us this evening," etc., etc.; and then rising,all the members join in a toast to the guest. Touching his glass totheirs, and then gracefully unreeling his garden hose, he takes from hispocket the small funnel, and, gently sipping the generous wine throughhis tin pharynx, he begins his well-digested response.

  Nature did not do much for this poor lad, but science has stepped in andmade him a man of mark. He went to bed unknown. He awoke to find himselfnoted. He went to sleep with ordinary tastes. He arose wi
th no taste atall. Thus, through the medical treatment of a typhoid idiot, for adisease which was in no way malignant, or, as I might say, therapeutic,he became a man of parts and stands next to the nobility of Europe, nothaving to work.

  Afterward, in Paris, I saw on the street a man who played the tromboneby means of a bullet-hole in his trachea, but I do not think itelevated me and spurred me on to nobler endeavor and made a better manof me, as did this simple-hearted young gentleman who made a living byeating publicly through a tin horn, and who actually earned his bread byeating it. I hope that the medical fraternity will make his case a studyand try to do better next time. That is the only moral I can think of inconnection with this story.