I
Dr. Coughlin of Leopolis had a red mustache, a large heartiness, and a Maxwell which, though it was three years old this May and deplorable as to varnish, he believed to be the superior in speed and beauty of any motor in Dakota.
He came home in high cheerfulness, rode the youngest of his three children pickaback, and remarked to his wife:
“Tessie, I got a swell idea.”
“Yes, and you got a swell breath, too. I wish you’d quit testing that old Spirits Frumentus bottle at the drug store!”
“Attagirl! But honest, listen!”
“I will not!” She bussed him heartily. “Nothing doing about driving to Los Angeles this summer. Too far, with all the brats squalling.”
“Sure. All right. But I mean: Let’s pack up and light out and spend a week touring ’round the state. Say tomorrow or next day. Got nothing to keep me now except that obstetrical case, and we’ll hand that over to Winter.”
“All right. We can try out the new thermos bottles!” Dr. Coughlin, his lady, and the children started at four in the morning. The car was at first too well arranged to be interesting, but after three days, as he approached you on the flat road that without an inch of curving was slashed for leagues through the grassy young wheat, you saw the doctor in his khaki suit, his horn-rimmed spectacles, and white linen boating hat; his wife in a green flannel blouse and a lace boudoir cap. The rest of the car was slightly confused. While you motored by you noticed a canvas Egyptian Water Bottle, mud on wheels and fenders, a spade, two older children leaning perilously out and making tongues at you, the baby’s diapers hanging on a line across the tonneau, a torn copy of Snappy Stories, seven lollypop sticks, a jack, a fish-rod, and a rolled tent.
Your last impression was of two large pennants labeled “Leopolis, N.D.,” and “Excuse Our Dust.”
The Coughlins had agreeable adventures. Once they were stuck in a mud-hole. To the shrieking admiration of the family, the doctor got them out by making a bridge of fence rails. Once the ignition ceased and, while they awaited a garageman summoned by telephone, they viewed a dairy farm with an electrical milking machine. All the way they were broadened by travel, and discovered the wonders of the great world: the movie theater at Roundup, which had for orchestra not only a hand-played piano but also a violin; the black fox farm at Melody; and the Severance water-tower, which was said to be the tallest in Central North Dakota.
Dr. Coughlin “dropped in to pass the time of day,” as he said, with all the doctors. At St. Luke he had an intimate friend in Dr. Tromp—at least they had met twice, at the annual meetings of the Pony River Valley Medical Association. When he told Tromp how bad they had found the hotels, Tromp looked uneasy and conscientious, and sighed, “If the wife could fix it up somehow, I’d like to invite you all to stay with us tonight.”
“Oh, don’t want to impose on you. Sure it wouldn’t be any trouble?” said Coughlin.
After Mrs. Tromp had recovered from her desire to call her husband aside and make unheard but vigorous observations, and after the oldest Tromp boy had learned that “it wasn’t nice for a little gentleman to kick his wee guests that came from so far, far away,” they were all very happy. Mrs. Coughlin and Mrs. Tromp bewailed the cost of laundry soap and butter, and exchanged recipes for pickled peaches, while the men, sitting on the edge of the porch, their knees crossed, eloquently waving their cigars, gave themselves up to the ecstasy of shop-talk:
“Say, Doctor, how do you find collections?”
(It was Coughlin speaking—or it might have been Tromp.)
“Well, they’re pretty good. These Germans pay up first rate. Never send ’em a bill, but when they’ve harvested they come in and say, ‘How much do I owe you, Doctor?’ ”
“Yuh, the Germans are pretty good pay.”
“Yump, they certainly are. Not many deadbeats among the Germans.”
“Yes, that’s a fact. Say, tell me, Doctor, what do you do with your jaundice cases?”
“Well, I’ll tell you, Doctor: if it’s a persistent case I usually give ammonium chlorid.”
“Do you? I’ve been giving ammonium chlorid but here the other day I see a communication in the Journal of the A.M.A. where a fellow was claiming it wasn’t any good.”
“Is that a fact! Well, well! I didn’t see that. Hum. Well. Say, Doctor, do you find you can do much with asthma?”
“Well now, Doctor, just in confidence, I’m going to tell you something that may strike you as funny, but I believe that foxes’ lungs are fine for asthma, and T.B. too. I told that to a Sioux City pulmonary specialist one time and he laughed at me—said it wasn’t scientific—and I said to him, ‘Hell!’ I said, ‘scientific!’ I said, ‘I don’t know if it’s the latest fad and wrinkle in science or not,’ I said, ‘but I get results, and that’s what I’m looking for ’s results!’ I said. I tell you a plug G.P. may not have a lot of letters after his name, but he sees a slew of mysterious things that he can’t explain, and I swear I believe most of these damn alleged scientists could learn a whale of a lot from the plain country practitioners, let me tell you!”
“Yuh, that’s a fact. Personally I’d rather stay right here in the country and be able to do a little hunting and take it easy than be the classiest specialist in the cities. One time I kind of figured on becoming an X-ray specialist—place in New York where you can take the whole course in eight weeks—and maybe settling in Butte or Sioux Falls, but I figured that even if I got to making eight-ten thousand a year, ’twouldn’t hardly mean more than three thousand does here and so—And a fellow has to consider his duty to his old patients.”
“That’s so … Say, Doctor, say, what sort of fellow is McMinturn, down your way?”
“Well, I don’t like to knock any fellow practitioner, and I suppose he’s well intentioned, but just between you and me he does too confounded much guesswork. Now you take you and me, we apply science to a case, instead of taking a chance and just relying on experience and going off half-cocked. But McMinturn, he doesn’t know enough. And say, that wife of his, she’s a caution—she’s got the meanest tongue in four counties, and the way she chases around drumming up business for Mac—Well, I suppose that’s their way of doing business.”
“Is old Winter keeping going?”
“Oh, yes, in a sort of way. You know how he is. Of course he’s about twenty years behind the times, but he’s a great hand-holder—keep some fool woman in bed six weeks longer than he needs to, and call around twice a day and chin with her—absolutely unnecessary.”
“I suppose you get your biggest competition from Silzer, Doctor?”
“Don’t you believe it, Doctor! He isn’t beginning to do the practice he lets on to. Trouble with Silzer is, he’s too brash—shoots off his mouth too much—likes to hear himself talk. Oh, say, by the way, have you run into this new fellow—will been located here about two years now—at Wheatsylvania—Arrowsmith?”
“No, but they say he’s a good bright young fellow.”
“Yes, they claim he’s a brainy man—very well-informed—and I hear his wife is a nice brainy little woman.”
“I hear Arrowsmith hits it up too much though—likes his booze awful well.”
“Yes, so they say. Shame, for a nice hustling young fellow. I like a nip myself, now and then, but a Drinking Man—! Suppose he’s drunk and gets called out on a case! And a fellow from down there was telling me Arrowsmith is great on books and study, but he’s a freethinker—never goes to church.”
“Is that a fact! Hm. Great mistake for any doctor to not identify himself with some good solid religious denomination, whether he believes the stuff or not. I tell you a priest or a preacher can send you an awful lot of business.”
“You bet he can! Well, this fellow said Arrowsmith was always arguing with the preachers—he told some Reverend that everybody ought to read this immunologist Max Gottlieb, and this Jacques Loeb—you know—the fellow that, well, I don’t recall just exactly what it was, but he claimed he could create living fishes out of chemicals.”
“Sure! There you got it! That’s the kind of delusions these laboratory fellows get unless they have some practical practice to keep ’em well balanced. Well, if Arrowsmith falls for that kind of fellow, no wonder people don’t trust him.”
“That’s so. Hm. Well, it’s too bad Arrowsmith goes drinking and helling around and neglecting his family and his patients. I can see his finish. Shame. Well—wonder what time o’ night it’s getting to be?”