When the big snowstorm blew in Doc rented a sleigh from the livery stable to make country rounds. Late one afternoon the oldest Bontrager boy, a big strappin’ fellow bundled up against the cold came to the back door and shook off the snow. “Ma is in terrible pain. Can you come?” He asked. “I will go, if you lead the way,” Doc said. I went to the barn and hitched Sam, a strong bay gelding, to the sleigh. You couldn’t have kept me away from seeing Rachel and besides, the trip would be easier with two of us. I got out the buffalo robe. Aunt Alice heated bricks and filled two canteens with hot soup in case we got stuck. Just before we started, I ran back into the house and took two oranges that came all the way from Floridy for Rachel.
Big flakes of sticky snow falling from low gray clouds made it hard to see the road but we followed the Bontrager boy and flew over the snow. The runners sang and Sam ran as if he was happy to get out of the barn. We were plenty warm under the robe. I drove while Doc quizzed me on the skull. I couldn’t remember the names of the nerves on account of I had been reading Ned Buntline’s dime novels about the Wild West.
“Tom, sometimes, I think you are too dumb for medical college.” He said in a joking sort of way.
he dogs came runnin’ and yappin’ as soon as we came to the line of trees that marked the Bontrager place. The old man gave the dogs a kick. They growled and went back under the porch while I took the horse to the barn and Doc ran up the steps.
When I came into the house, the smell just about knocked me dead. The windows were shut tight and the stove was hot. There was no cheer in the dark and gloomy parlor. Mrs. Bontrager lay perfectly still under a pile of quilts in the parlor. Her hair had turned pure white and her skin was dry and pale as a piece of paper. Until she opened her eyes and screamed, I thought she was dead. The scream went on and on, and didn’t stop until she gasped for breath. It started again, got louder and screechier until it tailed off to a low moan.
Rachel had aged twenty years. I hardly recognized her. All that corn-shuck pretty hair was bound up in a tight braid around her head and covered with a little cap. She wore a plain long gray homespun dress, fastened up to her neck. She knelt down and whispered to her mother while Mr. Bontrager and the boys went to the barn. The shrieking stopped and Rachel’ ma opened her rheumy eyes and looked at the doctor.
“Help me, stop the pain, oh, make the pain go away,” she said in a half whisper, half moan as if it was her last breath.
Doc filled the big metal syringe with morphine sulfate and pressed the needle into her arm. She let out another shriek, then pretty soon opened her eyes like she had come back from some distant terrible place. Her voice was low, almost normal, like there wasn’t a thing in the world wrong. “Thank you,” said she.
Folks didn’t mind sickness or even death so much as they feared pain and the doctor’s most important job was to take away the pain. Doc once said that morphine was the most important medicine because it took away the worst kinds of pain. It struck me how some diseases, like the consumption that took Pa, didn’t cause much pain.
“Boil water and make a one percent solution of carbolic,” Doc said.
Rachel walked to the kitchen slow on heavy feet like she was plumb worn out. Neither of us said a word while we waited for the pan of water. I couldn’t think of a thing to say until I remembered the oranges. “These are for you. They came all the way from Floridy on the train,” said I.
“What are they?” She asked.
“Oranges. You skin ‘em and eat what’s inside.”
“They are too pretty to eat,” she said.
“I’m real sorry about your mother. I had hoped to see you again but there weren’t any chances to come this way and you don’t come to town no more.”
She sniffled; big tears rolled down her cheeks. I patted her arm but she pulled away and dabbed her eyes with a cloth. I mixed carbolic acid into the boiling water. Doc had pulled back the curtains so the room to let in some light. He opened Mrs. Bontrager’s dress and pulled down her shift. I took one look and almost was sick to my stomach. Her breast was nothing like the softest, prettiest thing every man dreamed about, but was a terrible festering, hard mass of greenish, oozing flesh. Doc touched it and shook his head. His face was sad. “The cancer broke through the skin, is infected and causes terrible pain.” He gave a big sigh and washed away the pus with a cloth soaked in the carbolic solution. “Wash away the pus every day, then cover it with a cloth soaked in the carbolic solution,” Doc said to Rachel.
He left a big bottle of morphine sulfate on the table. “Give her a tablespoon when she has pain,” he said.
It was snowing hard and the sun was down when we hitched Sam to the sleigh and headed for home. Doc took a big slug of whiskey as soon as we started. He was in a dark mood and I wasn’t feeling so good about the big change that had come over Rachel. I didn’t pay attention to the road, figuring that the horse would know the way home. It wasn’t no more than a half hour when Sam foundered in a drift. I yelled and pulled on the reins, but he kicked and went plumb crazy. The sleigh tipped over into a big snowdrift and the lantern went out. I was flat on my back in the snow, but had the sense to dig out. “Doc, you alright,” I yelled. He didn’t answer. Sam took off back the way we came, with the sleigh over on its side.
The wind was making so much noise I almost didn’t hear his low moan. I felt in the snow with my hands and found Doc. He was half buried in the snow and his face was ice cold to my touch. I slapped his face and pulled on his arm. “Doc, come on, we gotta move or freeze to death,” I said.
I got him up on his feet, slung his arm over my shoulder and followed our tracks back towards the Bontrager’s. Doc took a step and fell on his face. It took all my strength to get him up so we could stagger along the road. It seeemed like half the night until we came to the house. I banged on the door until there was a light and old man Bontrager let us in. We were both shivering hard and Doc had a big bruise on his head. I wasn’t hurt, just cold. Rachel fixed hot cider and the boys piled up quilts and blankets on the floor for us to sleep. Doc came around, but went to sleep next to the stove. I lay awake, listening to the fire crackle. Sleep still hadn’t come when I heard a board creak on the stairs and then Rachel was right beside me, with a little candle lantern. She wore a long wool robe and where it fell apart I could see the top of her flannel nightgown. I thought I was dreaming the whole thing, but she put her hand on my cheek.
“Tom, you awake?”
“Yes.”
“I ate one of the oranges. It was so good. I thought about you most every day ever since you came here for the ice cream social.”
“I wanted to come back, but your pa warned me away.”
I wondered if she was going to slip in under the quilts, but instead a big wet tear rolled down her cheek. It glistened in the candle-light, same as when sun shines on drops of melting water dripping off a roof.
I reached out both hands to pull her close, but she leaned away and wouldn’t let me touch her.
“Tom, I was baptized and betrothed. You can’t never come back again.”
“But you said you wanted to go with me.”
“I’d druther go with you but it ain’t no use. Ma don’t want me to marry so young, but I got to marry Jacob Hartzler. Pa’s got it all arranged.”
“No,” I said, “you are supposed to marry me, when I finish school and get to be a doctor.”
“I got to take care of mamma and I won’t get married as long as she’s alive, but when she passes on then there ain’t nothin’ I can do.”
“Your ma just can’t die. There’s got to be medicine for cancer. I’ll study the books and find a cure.”
She let me hold her hand for a long time while we listened to the wind and to Doc snoring on the other side of the stove. When the candle burned low, she tiptoed into the kitchen and up the back stairs. There was a big hollow, dead-like place in my middle, like when Pa died. I must have drifted off to sleep until there was another of those long shrill screams at daylight. Doc didn’t look none too good, but he went upstairs and gave Mrs. Bontrager another injection of morphine.
Rachel acted like I wasn’t even in the same room while she fixed oatmeal and sliced bread. I didn’t feel like eating and went out to the barn with Walter the youngest Bontrager boy. During the night, he had found our horse.
“Is it true Rachel’s betrothed?” I asked. “She’s going to marry Jacob Hartzler when ma passes on account of he lives on the next farm and Pa wants his land in our family.”
“It ain’t right to marry her off to an older man just so your Pa can get more land,” said I. “That is how we arrange marriages,” said Walter. . It wasn’t fair and it wasn’t right, but there wasn’t anything to do about it.
The ride back was cold, but it wasn’t as cold and black as my heart. “Doc, there’s got to be a medicine for cancer, or maybe an operation,” I said.
“There’s nothing to do except treat the infection. That cancer is too big to cut out and medicine doesn’t help,” said Doc.
“If I find something, would you try it?”
“That’s wishful thinking, but I would try most anything.”
“It’s too bad Rachel has to take care of her mother and do all the work. The old man and the brothers don’t do a thing to help,” I said.
We jogged along for a spell. “I’ll see if Miss Pendelton will help care for her.”