A Country Doctor by Sarah Orne Jewett (top novels TXT) 📕

It is impossible to describe the importance of such experiences as these in forming the character of the young girl's power of resource, and wealth of self-reliance and practical experience. Sometimes in houses where she would have felt at least liberty to go only as spectator and scholar of medicine, Dr. Leslie insisted upon establishing her for a few days as chief nurse and overseer, and before Nan had been at work many months her teacher found her of great use, and grew more proud and glad day by day as he watched her determination, her enthusiasm, and her excellent progress. Over and over again he said to himself, or to her, that she was doing the work for which nature had meant her, and when the time came for her to go away from Oldfields, it seemed more impossible than it ever had before that he should get on without her, at home, or as an independent human being, who was following reverently in the path he had chosen so many years before. For her sake he had reached out again toward many acquaintances from whom he had drifted away, and he made many short journeys to Boston or to New York, and was pleased at his hearty welcome back to the medical meetings he had hardly entered during so many years. He missed not a few old friends, but he quickly made new ones. He was vastly pleased when the younger men seemed glad to hear him speak, and it was often proved that either through study or experience he had caught at some fresh knowledge of which his associates were still ignorant. He had laughingly accused himself of being a rusty country doctor and old fogy who had not kept up with the times; but many a letter followed him home, with thanks for some helpful suggestion or advice as to the management of a troublesome case. He was too far away to give room for any danger of professional jealousy, or for the infringement of that ever lengthening code of etiquette so important to the sensitive medical mind. Therefore he had only much pleasure and a fine tribute of recognition and honor, and he smiled more than once as he sat in the quiet Oldfields study before the fire, and looked up at Captain Finch's little ship, and told Nan of his town experiences, not always omitting, though attempting to deprecate, the compliments, in some half-hour when they were on peculiarly good terms with each other. And Nan believed there could be no better doctor in the world, and stoutly told him so, and yet listened only half-convinced when he said that he had a great mind to go to town and open an office, and make a specialty of treating diseases of the heart, since everybody had a specialty nowadays. He never felt so ready for practice as now, but Nan somehow could not bear the thought of his being anywhere but in his home. For herself, she would have been ready to venture anything if it would further her ever-growing purpose; but that Dr. Leslie should begin a new career or contest with the world seemed impossible. He was not so strong as he used to be, and he was already famous among his fellows. She would help him with his work by and by even more than now, and her own chosen calling of a country doctor was the dearer to her, because he had followed it so gallantly before her loving and admiring eyes. But Dr. Leslie built many a castle in the air, with himself and a great city practice for tenants, and said that it would be a capital thing for Nan; she could go on with it alone by and by. It was astonishing how little some of the city doctors knew: they relied upon each other too much; they should all be forced to drive over hill and dale, and be knocked about in a hard country practice for eight or ten years before they went to town. "Plenty of time to read their books in June and January," the doctor would grumble to himself, and turn to look fondly at the long rows of his dear library acquaintances, his Braithwaites and Lancets, and their younger brothers, beside the first new Sydenham Society's books, with their clumsy blot of gilding. And he would stand sometimes with his hands behind him and look at the many familiar rows of brown leather-covered volumes, most of them delightfully worn with his own use and that of the other physicians whose generous friend and constant instructor he had been through years of sometimes stormy but usually friendly intercourse and association.

When people in general had grown tired of discussing this strange freak and purpose of the doctor and his ward, and had become familiar with Nan's persistent interest and occupation in her studies, there came a time of great discontent to the two persons most concerned. For it was impossible to disguise the fact that the time had again come for the girl to go away from home. They had always looked forward to this, and directed much thought and action toward it, and yet they decided with great regret upon setting a new train of things in motion.

While it was well enough and useful enough that Nan should go on with her present mode of life, they both had a wider outlook, and though with the excuse of her youthfulness they had put off her departure as long as possible, still almost without any discussion it was decided that she must enter the medical school to go through with its course of instruction formally, and receive its authority to practice her profession. They both felt that this held a great many unpleasantnesses among its store of benefits. Nan was no longer to be shielded and protected and guided by some one whose wisdom she rarely questioned, but must make her own decisions instead, and give from her own bounty, and stand in her lot and place. Her later school-days were sure to be more trying than her earlier ones, as they carried her into deeper waters of scholarship, and were more important to her future position before the public.

If a young man plans the same course, everything conspires to help him and forward him, and the very fact of his having chosen one of the learned professions gives him a certain social preëminence and dignity. But in the days of Nan's student life it was just the reverse. Though she had been directed toward such a purpose entirely by her singular talent, instead of by the motives of expediency which rule the decisions of a large proportion of the young men who study medicine, she found little encouragement either from the quality of the school or the interest of society in general. There were times when she actually resented the prospect of the many weeks which she must spend in listening to inferior instruction before gaining a diploma, which was only a formal seal of disapproval in most persons' eyes. And yet, when she remembered her perfect certainty that she was doing the right thing, and remembered what renown some women physicians had won, and the avenues of usefulness which lay open to her on every side, there was no real drawing back, but rather a proud certainty of her most womanly and respectable calling, and a reverent desire to make the best use possible of the gifts God had certainly not made a mistake in giving her. "If He meant I should be a doctor," the girl told herself, "the best thing I can do is to try to be a good one."

So Nan packed her boxes and said good-by to Mrs. Graham, who looked wistful and doubtful, but blessed her most heartily, saying she should miss her sadly in the winter. And Marilla, who had unexpectedly reserved her opinion of late, made believe that she was very busy in the pantry, just as she had done when Nan was being launched for boarding-school. She shook her own floury hands vigorously, and offered one at last, muffled in her apron, and wished our friend good luck, with considerable friendliness, mentioning that she should be glad if Nan would say when she wrote home what shapes they seemed to be wearing for bonnets in the city, though she supposed they would be flaunting for Oldfields anyway. The doctor was going too, and they started for the station much too early for the train, since Dr. Leslie always suffered from a nervous dread of having an unavoidable summons to a distant patient at the last moment.

And when the examinations were over, and Nan had been matriculated, and the doctor had somewhat contemptuously overlooked the building and its capabilities, and had compared those students whom he saw with his remembrance of his own class, and triumphantly picked out a face and figure that looked hopeful here and there; he told himself that like all new growths it was feeble yet, and needed girls like his Nan, with high moral purpose and excellent capacity, who would make the college strong and to be respected. Not such doctors as several of whom he reminded himself, who were disgracing their sex, but those whose lives were ruled by a pettiness of detail, a lack of power, and an absence of high aim. Somehow both our friends lost much of the feeling that Nan was doing a peculiar thing, when they saw so many others following the same path. And having seen Nan more than half-settled in her winter quarters, and knowing that one or two of her former school friends had given her a delighted and most friendly welcome, and having made a few visits to the people whom he fancied would help her in one way or another, Dr. Leslie said good-by, and turned his face homeward, feeling more lonely than he had felt in a great many years before. He thought about Nan a great deal on the journey, though he had provided himself with some most desirable new books. He was thankful he had been able to do a kind turn for one of the most influential doctors, who had cheerfully promised to put some special advantages in Nan's way; but when he reached home the house seemed very empty, and he missed his gay companion as he drove along the country roads. After the days began to grow longer, and the sun brighter, such pleasant letters came from the absent scholar, that the doctor took heart more and more, and went over to Mrs. Graham with almost every fresh bit of news. She smiled, and listened, and applauded, and one day said with delightful cordiality that she wished there were more girls who cared whether their lives really amounted to anything. But not every one had a talent which was such a stimulus as Nan's.

"Nothing succeeds like success," rejoined the doctor cheerfully, "I always knew the child would do the best she could."

While all these years were passing, Miss Anna Prince the elder was living quietly in Dunport, and she had changed so little that her friends frequently complimented her upon such continued youthfulness. She had by no means forgotten the two greatest among the many losses and sorrows of her life, but the first sharp pain of them was long since over with. The lover from whom she had parted for the sake of a petty misunderstanding had married afterward and died early; but he had left a son of whom Miss Prince was very proud and fond; and she had given him the place in her heart which should have belonged to her own niece. When she thought of the other trial, she believed herself, still, more sinned against than