“Well,” J.W. commented, “isn’t that what you came for?”

“It is,” Marcia answered—­these two had a queer way of speaking for each other—­“and it would be a good plenty if the hospital were all.  But we are putting up a new building to take the place of an adobe horror, and Joe has to buy bricks and deal with workmen and give advice and dispense medicine and do operations, all with the help of a none too sure interpreter.  He’s the busiest man, I do believe, between here and Foochow.”

J.W. wanted to draw Dr. Joe out about the work in general.  What of the evangelistic work, and the educational work, and all the rest.

But Dr. Joe would not rise to it.  “I’ll tell you honestly, J.W., I just don’t know.  Haven’t had time to find out.  When I got here I found people standing three deep around the hospital doors, some wanting help for themselves, and some anxious to bring relatives or friends.  I was at work before anything was unpacked except my instruments.  And I’ve been at it ever since.  Everything else could wait, but all this human misery couldn’t.  And I don’t know much of what the evangelistic value of it all will be.  We have a Bible woman and a teacher in the school who are very devoted.  They read and pray every day with the patients, and as for gratitude, I never expected to be thanked for what I did as I have been thanked here.  I’ll tell you one thing; I didn’t dream a man could be so content in the midst of such a hurricane of work.  I’m done to a standstill every day; I bump into difficulties and tackle responsibilities that I hadn’t even heard of in medical school, though I haven’t killed anybody yet.  And all the time I remember how I used to wish I might be the only doctor between Siam and sunrise.  I’m plenty near enough to that, in all conscience.  The only doctor in this town of one hundred thousand, and a district around us so big that I’m afraid to measure it.  On one side the next doctor is a good hundred miles away.  Now, do you know how I feel?  Oh, yes; insufficient until it hurts like the toothache, yet somehow as though I were carrying on here, not in place of the man who has gone home on furlough, but in place of Jesus Christ himself.  You know I’m not irreverent; I might have been, but this has taken all of the temptation out of me.  It is his work, not mine.”

J.W. turned to Marcia again.  “I thought you said this Joe of yours was miserable, I’ve seen him when he was enjoying himself pretty well, but I never saw him like this.”

“I know,” Marcia admitted, “and I didn’t mean he was really unhappy.  But it is a big strain, and there’s no sign of its letting up until the regular doctor gets back.”

The next day J.W. watched his old friend amid the press of duties which crowded the hours, and he marveled as much as the wretchedness of the patients as he did at the steady resourcefulness of the man whom he had known when he was Delafield’s adventurous and spendthrift idler.