There’s no good reason why things should look worse in the morning. I felt bad about talking back to the doctor and not going to church. It got worse when Aunt Alice banged the dishes and didn’t say a word. I wanted to head out west, but didn’t have an outfit, couldn’t aim a pistol and even Little Ike was braver than me. I said my prayers over breakfast and vowed to do better.
As soon as I dried the dishes, I ran to the store and swept and mopped the floor by the time Pa came at nine o’clock, just like always. He looked better after a day of rest. “Tom, label the bottles,” he said
The dime novels and penny thrillers on the rack by the front door told stories of high adventure, fighting Indians, killing desperados and finding gold nuggets. I had read every one of them before they were sold. According to the dime novels, lots of swooning maidens needed rescuing from blood thirsty savages. Afterwards the girl couldn’t get enough of kissin’ and huggin’. I didn’t have no experience along those lines but it sounded like a fine life.
The labels of bottles of Ginseng had a picture of an Indian in full headdress that reminded me of those blood thirsty savages.
ELIXER OF GINSENG
Warms the blood and revives the mind
Strengthens the stomach and comforts the bowels
Gently relieves all female ailments
Frisks the manly spirits in all ages.
RECOMMENDED BY INDIAN AND CHINESE PHYSICIANS
Ginseng roots in alcohol was our most popular remedy; old men paid as much as fifty cents a bottle. I drank some, once, and got swimmy in the head, but It didn’t grow hair on my chest or build muscles.
After a while, Pa shuffled into the back room and spotted four bottles with crooked labels. “Fix those labels then mix the horehound and whisky,” he said.
I measured the ingredients and filled a couple dozen bottles, then went to work on mixing eucalyptus oil and camphor for whooping cough. His grandmother in Maine gave Pa all these recipes. They worked too. There was nothing as good for pneumonia as ground up lobelia roots in lard rubbed on the chest.
“Whoa, whoa there.” It was Miz Trimmer, hollering at her good for nothing old gray horse,that was half deaf. I opened the back door when Sarah, Little Ike’s mother stepped down from the four wheeled surrey. I helped Miz Trimmer on account of she had the rheumatics and breathed hard. She was a fine, up-standing lady who always wore a white bonnet and a long black dress with a white collar. “Thank you, Tom. Now, get those sacks from the back of the buggy”, she said.
“Sarah and the children found everything in the woods,” said Miz Trimmer. Pa sorted out the ginseng roots, Echinacea, Sassafras, hepatica and lobelia roots and leaves, while I ran to the front of the store for two bottles of strawberry soda pop for the ladies.
When I came back, Sarah held a hanky over her face with tears running down her cheeks. “Little Ike ain’t come home. He been away since Sattidy, I’se feared he drowned in the river,” said she. I got a cold feeling in the pit of my stomach and the picture of Ike running away from Murphy flashed through my mind. I didn’t say nothin’ so’s not to worry Sarah. “That ain’t all,” She sobbed for a while. “What else?” Pa asked. “Those men in white were back last night. This time, they burned a cross and shot off guns,” Sarah said.
Miz Trimmer sat on the straight back chair by Pa’s desk. She breathed hard and made a wheezing noise in her throat. “They want the land we gave to Isaiah when we come from Virginia. It is their land and when I pass on, they get my two hundred acres. It is in the deed and I’m going to put it in my will,” said she.
“Have you made the will?” Pa asked. “Why no,” said she.
Pa weighed the roots on a balance scale and counted out dollar bills and silver coins to pay Miz Trimmer. “No, give it to Sarah.” Miz Trimmer had a bad spell of coughing.
“I feel poorly. Maybe it is time to make the will,” said she.
Pa pushed paper and a pen across the desk. “What is the date? She asked. “August 25, 1871”, Pa said. She wrote a while. “There, the farm, the house, the barn and all the animals go to Isaiah and his family,” she said.
“You need two witnesses. Mr. Birt would do fine” said Pa.
Mr. Birt wasn’t in his office. “Well, try Mr. Farnum at the bank,” pa said. The banker came right away when I told him it was about a will.
Mr. Farnum adjusted his glasses and read the will. “This is an outrage. You can’t give property to those negroes,” said he.
“They are good people. Isaiah and his family cleared the land for wages just like any white man. Captain Trimmer deeded a piece of bottom land to Isaiah and I aim to give his family the rest of my property,” said Miz Trimmer.
“There is no deed recorded in the courthouse,” said Mr. Farnum. “I have not gotten around to it but all the papers are in a safe place,” said Miz Trimmer.
Mr. Farnum signed the will and stamped out the back door. “I’se feared of that man,” said Sarah.
The next day, Doc Evans came into the store to get some arnica ointment for rheumatism. He had been with Dr. Steele to see Rachel.
“It’s a damn miracle. That leg is healing and there isn’t a bit of infection. I asked Dr. Steele to see Mr. Birt’s bad arm,” Doc Evans said.
Mr. Birt had tried most everything to heal the wound in the stump of his arm. . Laudanum was the only thing that relieved the pain after a cannon ball mashed his elbow. “You can come along, if you want,” Doc Evans said.
Doc Evans office was untidy and smelled of whisky. Most folks didn’t mind because he took good care of the sick. When we came up the stairs, Mr. Birt and Dr. Steele were already there. The stump of Mr. Birt’s arm that dull red and leaked green pus that smelled like a dead mouse. Mr. Birt jerked and his face twitched every time Dr. Steele ran his fingers over a sore place partway up the arm.
“There’s probably a piece of shrapnel next to the bone pressing on a nerve. An operation might help,” Dr. Steele said.
“Can you relieve the pain? It’s got so bad I can’t sleep or scarcely work,” said Mr. Birt. “An operation might help if you survive but chances are you will be better,” said Dr. Steele
“At least you are honest. When can you do it?”
“Any time you want.”
“Tomorrow,” said Mr. Birt.
“Is there a room with good light in your house?” Dr. Steele asked.
“Sunlight comes in the dining room about noon,” said Mr. Birt.
“Tom, Can you help with the operation?” Dr. Steele asked.
“Yes sir.”
“Come around the Camp House tonight.”
Things weren’t right. Mr. Camp served drinks to the doctors and brought a lemonade for me. “Where is Isaiah,” I asked.
“He hasn’t been here since last Saturday. The whole family is out looking for little Ike,” Mr. Camp said.
It was just like a mule had kicked me in the stomach and I hardly noticed when Dr. Steele gave a big book to me..
“This is Gray’s Anatomy. Study the part about the upper arm before the operation,” said Dr. Steele.
The first page had a picture of a grinnin’ death’s head that reminded me of little Ike. I shivered and closed the book.
“This book is scary; I ain’t lookin’ at it no more.”
“Every doctor has to learn anatomy,” said Dr. Steele. “This is your chance to get ahead in the world,” Doc Evans said.
I opened it again and looked at pictures of muscles and nerves. “How come it ain’t in English?” I asked.
“The body parts have Latin names.” He flipped the pages until he came to a picture of the arm. “Study the nerves and arteries in the upper arm,” he said. He pinched my arm. “This is the biceps muscle and in back of the bone, is the triceps. The artery, the veins, the ulnar and median nerves are in this groove. The radial nerve winds around the bone.”
“Do you think shrapnel is pressing on that nerve?” Doc Evans said.
“Most likely,” Dr. Steele replied.
They got to talking about nerves and bones and injuries they had seen in the war. It seemed like this whole business of being a doctor was complicated and harder than just learning about Pa’s medicines.
I read Latin names like Arteria Brachialis or Venae Comites and how one of the nerves sort of twisted around the humerus bone.
Tim Morton, the night watchman dashed up the driveway in his buggy. “Dr. Evans, you are needed at the landing.”
We all piled into Tim’s buggy and made it the landing in no time. Isaiah and his son, Young Isaiah stood over the body of Little Ike. Tears rolled down their cheeks.
“Where did you find him?” Doc Evans asked.
“He was caught on willow branches ‘bout a mile down the river,” Young Isaiah said.
The whole family gathered around the little swollen up body, hollerin’ and screaming. His mother threw herself down. “Lord, Lord, mercy, please.” News traveled fast in Sandy Ford and pretty soon a large crowd gathered in the torchlight. Calvin Brewer the sheriff arrived a while later. His eyes were gone and there was a hole in Ike’s stomach.
“Looks like he drowned and a big Gar fish chewed on his stomach. “It’s death by natural causes. If I’da knowed it was a darkie, I never would a bothered,” the sheriff said.
It was a cruel thing to say; someone in the crowd laughed. “Ha, Ha, ain’t that right.” The sheriff was popular on account of he was all for running the ex slaves back south.
Dr. Steele got down on his knees. “Shine a light here.”
He studied the face and then poked and prodded at the guts sticking out the belly. “The hole in his stomach is cut clean, like a knife,” said he. He rolled the body onto his face.
There was another clean cut gash about an inch and a half long in his back. “Somebody stabbed the boy in the back,” Dr. Steele said.
“You got no business interfering. That hole coulda been made by a branch or a stick.” the sheriff said.
“Maybe you should look for the truth,” Doc Steele said.
I was about to tell about Ike and the man on horseback, when Billy Malone grabbed me. “Don’t say nothin’, less you want a heap of trouble,” he hissed.
Folks drifted home. Dr. Steele lit up a seegar and we walked together, toward the Camp House.
“Do you think Ike suffered much before he died?” I asked.
“I reckon he died pretty sudden,”
“I’ll study the book tonight and help with the operation,” said I.
“Good,” he said.
When I got home, Pa and Aunt Alice were already in bed but she had left a lamp in the kitchen. I studied and memorized the Latin names until I couldn’t keep my eyes open any longer.
The bay window of Mr. Birt’s house faced south and let in plenty of light. Mrs. Dewey, the housekeeper, had boiled a whole washtub of water. I dipped out two basins, added carbolic acid and soaked the instruments. When everything was ready, Mr. Birt took off his coat and shirt and let his underwear down to his waist. His flesh had wasted away and his ribs stuck out under the skin. Dr. Steele helped him up on the walnut dining room table with the stump of his arm facing the window. He laid down, put his head on a pillow, settled his good left arm down alongside his body, then took a deep breath and sort of sighed.
Dr. Evans folded a cloth into a cone and put it over Mr. Birt’s face. “It smells bad, but breathe deep,” he said.
After two or three breaths, he coughed and tried to get up, but we held him until he settled down. I caught a glimpse of Mrs. Dewey in the kitchen, down on her knees praying. We scrubbed our hands in the carbolic solution. Dr. Steele put the bistoury, probes, curettes and little curved clamps on a clean towel. There were two shiny metal instruments with hooks on the end that I hadn’t seen before. Dr. Steele said they were retractors to hold the skin open when he probed deep inside the wound.
Dr. Steele put a clean, folded towel under the stump and cut where the two folds of skin came together at the end of the stump. At first, there was only a trickle of blood, about what you would expect if you cut yourself with a pocket knife.
“Now, hold these retractors and pull the skin apart,” he said.
Bright red blood poured from deep in the wound.
“Tom, put your thumb on the artery just below his arm pit and squeeze with both hands, tight as you can.”
I held tight, but the blood squirted out just as fast.
“The artery, Tom, find the artery,” Dr. Steele said.
I remembered the picture of the artery on the inside of the arm right next to the bone and grabbed hard as I could. The blood slowed to a trickle. “Good work,” he said.
He swabbed the blood with a cloth soaked in carbolic acid.
“He’s sinking,” Doc Evans said in a sort of strangled voice.
“Let up on the ether,” Dr. Steele said. “The artery was weak and gave away.” He poked one of those curved-nosed clamps into the wound and clamped the artery. “Now let loose of the arm and hold these retractors.”
I held the instruments and peeked into the wound while he tied a thread under the clamp around the artery. When the knot was tied, he took off the clamp. It didn’t bleed. “Ah, the hard part is over, now let’s look for shrapnel.” He probed until there was a ‘clink’. Doc pulled out a chunk of shrapnel and a tablespoonful of green pus. “It was next to the humerus,” said he. Next, he removed pieces of bone with bits of blue cloth, stuffed a carbolic-soaked rag into the wound and wrapped the stump with bandages. Dr. Steele slumped on a chair, like he was pretty beat.
“Tom, you must learn how to give ether. The trick is to watch the breathing. If you give too much, the breathing slows and then the heart stops. Give too little and patients wake up.”
Mr. Birt’s lips and face were pretty blue and it took all afternoon for him to wake up. After he got to breathing better, the blue color left but he was just as pale as the belly of a dead fish. We carried him to a bed in a little room just off the front corridor. Mrs. Dewey piled hot bricks wrapped in towels around him while Dr. Steele counted his pulse for about the hundredth time..
“I could do with a drink,” he said.
Doc Evans opened a cabinet and took out a bottle and three glasses. “Get a pitcher of water,” he said.
When I come back with the pitcher, he had half filled two glasses with whiskey and poured about a tablespoonful for me and added some water, I took a little sip, then another and drank the whole glass. It warmed my belly and after a while, I was a little dizzy.
The doctors took turns staying with Mr. Birt. Pa’s fixed ginseng and iron tonic and Mrs. Dewey made a punch with brandy, rum, milk and sugar that he took at bedtime. The first few days he was weak as a kitten but he came around, commenced to eat and pretty soon, sat up in a chair. Did Pa’s tonic, the milk punch or Mrs. Dewey’s prayers that made Mr. Birt better? Dr. Steele made him eat beefsteak and eggs and a few days later he went back to work. I took his usual bottle of laudanum to the newspaper office.
“Papa sent this,” I said.
“I don’t hurt anymore.”
“Gee, sir, that’s just fine.”
“Dr. Steele says you have a talent for surgery. Have you thought of going to school and learning how to be a doctor?” Mr. Birt asked.
“I ain’t much interested in schooling, but operations are interesting.”
“You are a bright young fellow and should get serious about your future,” Mr. Birt said.