McTeague by Frank Norris (leveled readers TXT) 📕

of the room, wiping off, with a damp sponge, the oilcloth table-cover, on which they had breakfasted. Never had she looked so pretty. Early though it was, her enormous tiara of swarthy hair was neatly combed and coiled, not a pin was so much as loose. She wore a blue calico skirt with a white figure, and a belt of imitation alligator skin clasped around her small, firmly-corseted waist; her shirt waist was of pink linen, so new and crisp that it crackled with every movement, while around the collar, tied in a neat knot, was one of McTeague’s lawn ties which she had appropriated. Her sleeves were carefully rolled up almost to her shoulders, and nothing could have been more delicious than the sight of her small round arms, white as milk, moving back and forth as she sponged the table-cover, a faint touch of pink coming and going at the elbows as they bent and straightened. She looked up quickly as her husband entered, her narrow eyes alight, her adorable little chin in the air; her lips rounded and opened with the last words of her song, so that one could catch a glint of gold in the fillings of her upper teeth.

The whole scene⁠—the clean kitchen and its clean brick floor; the smell of coffee that lingered in the air; Trina herself, fresh as if from a bath, and singing at her work; the morning sun, striking obliquely through the white muslin half-curtain of the window and spanning the little kitchen with a bridge of golden mist⁠—gave off, as it were, a note of gayety that was not to be resisted. Through the opened top of the window came the noises of Polk Street, already long awake. One heard the chanting of street cries, the shrill calling of children on their way to school, the merry rattle of a butcher’s cart, the brisk noise of hammering, or the occasional prolonged roll of a cable car trundling heavily past, with a vibrant whirring of its jostled glass and the joyous clanging of its bells.

“What is it, Mac, dear?” said Trina.

McTeague shut the door behind him with his heel and handed her the letter. Trina read it through. Then suddenly her small hand gripped tightly upon the sponge, so that the water started from it and dripped in a little pattering deluge upon the bricks.

The letter⁠—or rather printed notice⁠—informed McTeague that he had never received a diploma from a dental college, and that in consequence he was forbidden to practise his profession any longer. A legal extract bearing upon the case was attached in small type.

“Why, what’s all this?” said Trina, calmly, without thought as yet.

“I don’ know, I don’ know,” answered her husband.

“You can’t practise any longer,” continued Trina⁠—“ ‘is herewith prohibited and enjoined from further continuing⁠—’ ” She reread the extract, her forehead lifting and puckering. She put the sponge carefully away in its wire rack over the sink, and drew up a chair to the table, spreading out the notice before her. “Sit down,” she said to McTeague. “Draw up to the table here, Mac, and let’s see what this is.”

“I got it this morning,” murmured the dentist. “It just now came. I was making some fillings⁠—there, in the Parlors, in the window⁠—and the postman shoved it through the door. I thought it was a number of the American System of Dentistry at first, and when I’d opened it and looked at it I thought I’d better⁠—”

“Say, Mac,” interrupted Trina, looking up from the notice, “didn’t you ever go to a dental college?”

“Huh? What? What?” exclaimed McTeague.

“How did you learn to be a dentist? Did you go to a college?”

“I went along with a fellow who came to the mine once. My mother sent me. We used to go from one camp to another. I sharpened his excavators for him, and put up his notices in the towns⁠—stuck them up in the post-offices and on the doors of the Odd Fellows’ halls. He had a wagon.”

“But didn’t you never go to a college?”

“Huh? What? College? No, I never went. I learned from the fellow.”

Trina rolled down her sleeves. She was a little paler than usual. She fastened the buttons into the cuffs and said:

“But do you know you can’t practise unless you’re graduated from a college? You haven’t the right to call yourself, ‘doctor.’ ”

McTeague stared a moment; then:

“Why, I’ve been practising ten years. More⁠—nearly twelve.”

“But it’s the law.”

“What’s the law?”

“That you can’t practise, or call yourself doctor, unless you’ve got a diploma.”

“What’s that⁠—a diploma?”

“I don’t know exactly. It’s a kind of paper that⁠—that⁠—oh, Mac, we’re ruined.” Trina’s voice rose to a cry.

“What do you mean, Trina? Ain’t I a dentist? Ain’t I a doctor? Look at my sign, and the gold tooth you gave me. Why, I’ve been practising nearly twelve years.”

Trina shut her lips tightly, cleared her throat, and pretended to resettle a hairpin at the back of her head.

“I guess it isn’t as bad as that,” she said, very quietly. “Let’s read this again. ‘Herewith prohibited and enjoined from further continuing⁠—’ ” She read to the end.

“Why, it isn’t possible,” she cried. “They can’t mean⁠—oh, Mac, I do believe⁠—pshaw!” she exclaimed, her pale face flushing. “They don’t know how good a dentist you are. What difference does a diploma make, if you’re a first-class dentist? I guess that’s all right. Mac, didn’t you ever go to a dental college?”

“No,” answered McTeague, doggedly. “What was the good? I learned how to operate; wa’n’t that enough?”

“Hark,” said Trina, suddenly. “Wasn’t that the bell of your office?” They had both heard the jangling of the bell that McTeague had hung over the door of his Parlors. The dentist looked at the kitchen clock.

“That’s Vanovitch,” said he. “He’s a plumber round on Sutter Street. He’s got an appointment with me to have a bicuspid pulled. I got to go back to work.” He rose.

“But you can’t,” cried Trina, the back of her hand upon her lips, her eyes brimming. “Mac,