Kennicott drew from the injured leg the thick red
“German sock,” the innumerous other socks
of gray and white wool, then the spiral bandage.
The leg was of an unwholesome dead white, with the
black hairs feeble and thin and flattened, and the
scar a puckered line of crimson. Surely, Carol
shuddered, this was not human flesh, the rosy shining
tissue of the amorous poets.
Kennicott examined the scar, smiled at Halvor and
his wife, chanted, “Fine, b’ gosh!
Couldn’t be better!”
The Nelsons looked deprecating. The farmer nodded
a cue to his wife and she mourned:
“Vell, how much ve going to owe you, doctor?”
“I guess it’ll be——Let’s
see: one drive out and two calls. I guess
it’ll be about eleven dollars in all, Lena.”
“I dunno ve can pay you yoost a little w’ile,
doctor.”
Kennicott lumbered over to her, patted her shoulder,
roared, “Why, Lord love you, sister, I won’t
worry if I never get it! You pay me next fall,
when you get your crop. . . . Carrie! Suppose
you or Bea could shake up a cup of coffee and some
cold lamb for the Nelsons? They got a long cold
drive ahead.”
He had been gone since morning; her eyes ached with
reading; Vida Sherwin could not come to tea.
She wandered through the house, empty as the bleary
street without. The problem of “Will the
doctor be home in time for supper, or shall I sit
down without him?” was important in the household.
Six was the rigid, the canonical supper-hour, but at
half-past six he had not come. Much speculation
with Bea: Had the obstetrical case taken longer
than he had expected? Had he been called somewhere
else? Was the snow much heavier out in the country,
so that he should have taken a buggy, or even a cutter,
instead of the car? Here in town it had melted
a lot, but still——
A honking, a shout, the motor engine raced before
it was shut off.
She hurried to the window. The car was a monster
at rest after furious adventures. The headlights
blazed on the clots of ice in the road so that the
tiniest lumps gave mountainous shadows, and the taillight
cast a circle of ruby on the snow behind. Kennicott
was opening the door, crying, “Here we are,
old girl! Got stuck couple times, but we made
it, by golly, we made it, and here we be! Come
on! Food! Eatin’s!”
She rushed to him, patted his fur coat, the long hairs
smooth but chilly to her fingers. She joyously
summoned Bea, “All right! He’s here!
We’ll sit right down!”
There were, to inform the doctor’s wife of his
successes no clapping audiences nor book-reviews nor
honorary degrees. But there was a letter written
by a German farmer recently moved from Minnesota to
Saskatchewan:
Dear sor, as you haf bin treading mee for a fue Weaks
dis Somer and seen wat is rong wit mee so in Regarding
to dat i wont to tank you. the Doctor heir say wat
shot bee rong wit mee and day give mee som Madsin
but it diten halp mee like wat you dit. Now day
glaim dat i Woten Neet aney Madsin ad all wat you
tink?
