The Depot Master Part 38

"Good Lord! he's out of his head," gasped the Captain. Sophronia and he stepped back into the sitting room and looked at each other, the same thought expressed in the face of each. Neither spoke for a moment, then Captain Hiram said:

"Now don't you worry, Sophrony. The Doctor ain't home, but I'm goin' out to--to telegraph him, or somethin'. Keep a stiff upper lip. It'll be all right. G.o.d couldn't go back on you and me that way. He just couldn't.

I'll be back in a little while."

"But, oh, Hiram! if he should--if he SHOULD be taken away, what WOULD we do?"

She began to cry. Her husband laid a trembling hand on her shoulder.

"But he won't," he declared stoutly. "I tell you G.o.d wouldn't do such a thing. Good-by, old lady. I'll hurry fast as I can."

As he took up his cap and turned to the door he heard the voice of the weary little first mate chokily calling his crew to quarters. "All hands on deck!"

The telegraph office was in Beriah Higgins's store. Thither ran the Captain. Pat Sharkey, Mr. Higgins's Irish helper, who acted as telegraph operator during Gertie Higgins's absence, gave Captain Hiram little satisfaction.

"How can I get Dr. Parker?" asked Pat. "He's off on a cruise and land knows where I can reach him to-night. I'll do what I can, Cap, but it's ten chances out of nine against a wire gettin' to him."

Captain Hiram left the store, dodging questioners who were anxious to know what his trouble might be, and dazedly crossed Main Street, to the railway station. He thought of asking advice of his friend, the depot master.

The evening train from Boston pulled out as he pa.s.sed through the waiting room. One or two pa.s.sengers were standing on the platform. One of these was a short, square-shouldered man with gray side whiskers and eyegla.s.ses. The initials on his suit case were J. S. M., Boston, and they stood for John Spencer Morgan. If the bearer of the suit case had followed the fashion of the native princes of India and had emblazoned his t.i.tles upon his baggage, the commonplace name just quoted might have been followed by "M.D., LL.D., at Harvard and Oxford; vice president American Medical Society; corresponding secretary a.s.sociated Society of Surgeons; lecturer at Harvard Medical College; author of 'Diseases of the Throat and Lungs,' etc., etc."

But Dr. Morgan was not given to advertising either his t.i.tles or himself, and he was hurrying across the platform to Redny Blount's depot wagon when Captain Hiram touched him on the arm.

"Why, h.e.l.lo, Captain Baker," exclaimed the Doctor, "how do you do?"

"Dr. Morgan," said the Captain, "I--I hope you'll excuse my presumin' on you this way, but I want to ask a favor of you, a great favor. I want to ask if you'll come down to the house and see the boy; he's on the sick list."

"What, Dusenberry?"

"Yes, sir. He's pretty bad, I'm 'fraid, and the old lady's considerable upsot about him. If you just come down and kind of take an observation, so's we could sort of get our bearin's, as you might say, 'twould be a mighty help to all hands."

"But where's your town physician? Hasn't he been called?"

The Captain explained. He had inquired, and he had telegraphed, but could get no word of Dr. Parker's whereabouts.

The great Boston specialist listened to Captain Hiram's story in an absent-minded way. Holidays were few and far between with him, and when he accepted the long-standing invitation of Mr. Ogden Williams to run down for the week end he determined to forget the science of medicine and all that pertained to it for the four days of his outing. But an exacting patient had detained him long enough to prevent his taking the train that morning, and now, on the moment of his belated arrival, he was asked to pay a professional call. He liked the Captain, who had taken him out fishing several times on his previous excursions to East Harniss, and he remembered Dusenberry as a happy little sea urchin, but he simply couldn't interrupt his pleasure trip to visit a sick baby.

Besides, the child was Dr. Parker's patient, and professional ethics forbade interference.

"Captain Hiram," he said, "I am sorry to disappoint you, but it will be impossible for me to do what you ask. Mr. Williams expected me this morning, and I am late already. Dr. Parker will, no doubt, return soon.

The baby cannot be dangerously ill or he would not have left him."

The Captain slowly turned away.

"Thank you, Doctor," he said huskily. "I knew I hadn't no right to ask."

He walked across the platform, abstractedly striking his right hand into his left. When he reached the ticket window he put one hand against the frame as if to steady himself, and stood there listlessly.

The enterprising Mr. Blount had been hanging about the Doctor like a cat about the cream pitcher; now he rushed up, grasped the suit case, and officiously led the way toward the depot wagon. Dr. Morgan followed more slowly. As he pa.s.sed the Captain he glanced up into the latter's face, lighted, as it was, by the lamp inside the window.

The Doctor stopped and looked again. Then he took another step forward, hesitated, turned on his heel, and said:

"Wait a moment, Blount. Captain Hiram, do you live far from here?"

The Captain started. "No, sir, only a little ways."

"All right. I'll go down and look at this boy of yours. Mind you, I'll not take the case, simply give my opinion on it, that's all. Blount, take my grip to Mr. Williams's. I'm going to walk down with the Captain."

"Haul on ee bowline, ee bowline, haul!" muttered the first mate, as they came into the room. The lamp that Sophronia was holding shook, and the Captain hurriedly brushed his eyes with the back of his hand.

Dr. Morgan started perceptibly as he bent forward to look at the little fevered face of Dusenberry. Graver and graver he became as he felt the pulse and peered into the swollen throat. At length he rose and led the way back into the sitting room.

"Captain Baker," he said simply, "I must ask you and your wife to be brave. The child has diphtheria and--"

"Diphthery!" gasped Sophronia, as white as her best tablecloth.

"Good Lord above!" cried the Captain.

"Diphtheria," repeated the Doctor; "and, although I dislike extremely to criticize a member of my own profession, I must say that any physician should have recognized it."

Sophronia groaned and covered her face with her ap.r.o.n.

"Ain't there--ain't there no chance, Doctor?" gasped the Captain.

"Certainly, there's a chance. If I could administer ant.i.toxin by to-morrow noon the patient might recover. What time does the morning train from Boston arrive here?"

"Ha'f-past ten or thereabouts."

Dr. Morgan took his notebook from his pocket and wrote a few lines in pencil on one of the pages. Then he tore out the leaf and handed it to the Captain.

"Send that telegram immediately to my a.s.sistant in Boston," he said.

"It directs him to send the ant.i.toxin by the early train. If nothing interferes it should be here in time."

Captain Hiram took the slip of paper and ran out at the door bareheaded.

Dr. Morgan stood in the middle of the floor absent-mindedly looking at his watch. Sophronia was gazing at him appealingly. At length he put his watch in his pocket and said quietly:

"Mrs. Baker, I must ask you to give me a room. I will take the case."

Then he added mentally: "And that settles my vacation."

Dr. Morgan's a.s.sistant was a young man whom nature had supplied with a prematurely bald head, a flourishing beard, and a way of appearing ten years older than he really was. To these gifts, priceless to a young medical man, might be added boundless ambition and considerable common sense.

The yellow envelope which contained the few lines meaning life or death to little Hiram Joash Baker was delivered at Dr. Morgan's Back Bay office at ten minutes past ten. Dr. Payson--that was the a.s.sistant's name--was out, but Jackson, the colored butler, took the telegram into his employer's office, laid it on the desk among the papers, and returned to the hall to finish his nap in the armchair. When Dr. Payson came in, at 11:30, the sleepy Jackson forgot to mention the dispatch.

The next morning as Jackson was cleaning the professional boots in the kitchen and chatting with the cook, the thought of the yellow envelope came back to his brain. He went up the stairs with such precipitation that the cook screamed, thinking he had a fit.

"Doctah! Doctah!" he exclaimed, opening the door of the a.s.sistant's chamber, "did you git dat telegraft I lef' on your desk las' night?"