Dr. Breen's Practice. William Dean Howells
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to have this respite; it gives me a chance to think. I felt a little timid about beginning alone.”
“A man would n't,” Mrs. Breen remarked.
“No. I am not a man. I have accepted that; with all the rest. I don't rebel against being a woman. If I had been a man, I should n't have studied medicine. You know that. I wished to be a physician because I was a woman, and because—because—I had failed where—other women's hopes are.” She said it out firmly, and her mother softened to her in proportion to the girl's own strength. “I might have been just a nurse. You know I should have been willing to be that, but I thought I could be something more. But it's no use talking.” She added, after an interval, in which her mother rocked to and fro with a gentle motion that searched the joints of her chair, and brought out its most plaintive squeak in pathetic iteration, and watched Grace, as she sat looking seaward through the open window, “I think it's rather hard, mother, that you should be always talking as if I wished to take my calling mannishly. All that I intend is not to take it womanishly; but as for not being a woman about it, or about anything, that's simply impossible. A woman is reminded of her insufficiency to herself every hour of the day. And it's always a man that comes to her help. I dropped some things out of my lap down there, and by the time I had gathered them up I was wound round and round with linen thread so that I could n't move a step, and Mr. Libby cut me loose. I could have done it myself, but it seemed right and natural that he should do it. I dare say he plumed himself upon his service to me,—that would be natural, too. I have things enough to keep me meek, mother!”
She did not look round at Mrs. Breen, who said, “I think you are morbid about it.”
“Yes. And I have the satisfaction of knowing that whatever people think of Louise's giddiness, I'm, a great deal more scandalous to them than she is simply because I wish to do some good in the world, in a way that women have n't done it, usually.”
“Now you are morbid.”
“Oh, yes! Talk about men being obstacles! It's other women! There isn't a woman in the house that would n't sooner trust herself in the hands of the stupidest boy that got his diploma with me than she would in mine. Louise knows it, and she feels that she has a claim upon me in being my patient. And I 've no influence with her about her conduct because she understands perfectly well that they all consider me much worse. She prides herself on doing me justice. She patronizes me. She tells me that I'm just as nice as, if I hadn't 'been through all that.'” Grace rose, and a laugh, which was half a sob, broke from her.
Mrs. Breen could not feel the humor of the predicament. “She puts you in a false position.”
“I must go and see where that poor little wretch of a child is,” said Grace, going out of the room. She returned in an hour, and asked her mother for the arnica. “Bella has had a bump,” she explained.
“Why, have you been all this time looking for her?
“No, I couldn't find her, and I've been reading. Barlow has just brought her in. HE could find her. She fell out of a tree, and she's frightfully bruised.”
She was making search on a closet shelf as she talked. When she reappeared with the bottle in her hand, her mother asked, “Is n't it very hot and close?”
“Very,” said Grace.
“I should certainly think they would perish,” said Mrs. Breen, hazarding the pronoun, with a woman's confidence that her interlocutor would apply it correctly.
When Grace had seen Bella properly bathed and brown-papered, and in the way to forgetfulness of her wounds in sleep, she came down to the piazza, and stood looking out to sea. The ladies appeared one by one over the edge of the cliff, and came up, languidly stringing their shawls after them, or clasping their novels to their bosoms.
“There isn't a breath down there,” they said, one after another. The last one added, “Barlow says it's the hottest day he's ever seen here.”
In a minute Barlow himself appeared at the head of the steps with the ladies' remaining wraps, and confirmed their report in person. “I tell you,” he said, wiping his forehead, “it's a ripper.”
“It must be an awful day in town,” said one of the ladies, fanning herself with a newspaper.
“Is that to-day's Advertiser, Mrs. Alger?” asked another.
“Oh, dear, no! yesterday's. We sha'n't have today's till this afternoon. It shows what a new arrival you are, Mrs. Scott—your asking.”
“To be sure. But it's such a comfort being where you can see the Advertiser the same morning. I always look at the Weather Report the first thing. I like to know what the weather is going to be.”
“You can't at Jocelyn's. You can only know what it's been.”
“Well,” Barlow interposed, jealous for Jocelyn's, “you can most al'ays tell by the look o' things.”
“Yes,” said one of the ladies; “but I'd rather trust the Weather Report. It's wonderful how it comes true. I don't think there 's anything that you miss more in Europe than our American Weather Report.”
“I'm sure you miss the oysters,” said another.
“Yes,” the first admitted, “you do miss the oysters. It was the last of the R months when we landed in New York; and do you know what we did the first thing—? We drove to Fulton Market, and had one of those Fulton Market broils! My husband said we should have had it if it had been July. He used to dream of the American oysters when we were in Europe. Gentlemen are so fond of them.”
Barlow, from scanning the heavens, turned round and faced the company, which had drooped in several attitudes of exhaustion on the benching of the piazza. “Well, I can most al'ays tell about Jocelyn's as good as the Weather Report. I told Mrs. Maynard here this mornin' that the fog was goin' to burn off.”
“Burn off?” cried Mrs. Alger. “I should think it had!” The other ladies laughed.
“And you'll see,” added Barlow, “that the wind 'll change at noon, and we'll have it cooler.”
“If it's as hot on the water as it is here,” said Mrs. Scott, “I should think those people would get a sunstroke.”
“Well, so should I, Mrs. Scott,” cordially exclaimed a little fat lady, as if here at last were an opinion in which all might rejoice to sympathize.
“It's never so hot on the water, Mrs. Merritt,” said Mrs. Alger, with the instructiveness of an old habitude.
“Well, not at Jocelyn's,” suggested Barlow. Mrs. Alger stopped fanning herself with her newspaper, and looked at him. Upon her motion, the other ladies looked at Barlow. Doubtless he felt that his social acceptability had ceased with his immediate usefulness. But he appeared resolved to carry it off easily. “Well,” he said, “I suppose I must go and pick my peas.”
No one said anything to this. When the factotum had disappeared round the corner of the house, Mrs. Alger turned her head' aside, and glanced downward with an air of fatigue. In this manner Barlow was dismissed from the ladies' minds.
“I presume,” said young Mrs. Scott, with a deferential glance at Grace, “that the sun is good for a person with lung-difficulty.”
Grace silently refused to consider herself appealed to, and Mrs. Merritt said, “Better than the moon, I should think.”
Some of the others tittered, but Grace looked up at Mrs. Merritt and said, “I don't think Mrs. Maynard's case is so bad that she need be afraid of either.”
“Oh, I am so glad to hear it!” replied the other. She looked round, but was unable to form a party. By twos or threes they might have liked to take Mrs. Maynard to pieces; but no one cares to make unkind remarks before a whole company of people. Some of the ladies even began to say pleasant things about Mr. Libby, as if he were Grace's friend.
“I always like to see these fair men when they