The tears gushed from her eyes. She made a sign of a.s.sent.
"But then," she resumed, "we made an excellent arrangement with a good woman who had just lost her husband, and wanted to live cheaply, too."
"What amuses you, madam?"
"Nothing great. But I wish you knew her. She"s funny. Well, so we moved down-town again. Didn"t cost much to move."
She would smile a little in spite of him.
"And then?" said he, stirring impatiently and leaning forward. "What then?"
"Why, then I worked a little harder than I thought,--pulling trunks around and so on,--and I had this third attack."
The Doctor straightened himself up, folded his arms, and muttered:--
"Oh!--oh! _Why_ wasn"t I instantly sent for?"
The tears were in her eyes again, but--
"Doctor," she answered, with her odd little argumentative smile, "how could we? We had nothing to pay with. It wouldn"t have been just."
"Just!" exclaimed the physician, angrily.
"Doctor," said the invalid, and looked at him.
"Oh--all right!"
She made no answer but to look at him still more pleadingly.
"Wouldn"t it have been just as fair to let me be generous, madam?" His faint smile was bitter. "For once? Simply for once?"
"We couldn"t make that proposition, could we, Doctor?"
He was checkmated.
"Mrs. Richling," he said suddenly, clasping the back of his chair as if about to rise, "tell me,--did you or your husband act this way for anything I"ve ever said or done?"
"No, Doctor! no, no; never! But"--
"But kindness should seek--not be sought," said the physician, starting up.
"No, Doctor, we didn"t look on it so. Of course we didn"t. If there"s any fault it"s all mine. For it was my own proposition to John, that as we _had_ to seek charity we should just be honest and open about it. I said, "John, as I need the best attention, and as that can be offered free only in the hospital, why, to the hospital I ought to go.""
She lay still, and the Doctor pondered. Presently he said:--
"And Mr. Richling--I suppose he looks for work all the time?"
"From daylight to dark!"
"Well, the water is pa.s.sing off. He"ll be along by and by to see you, no doubt. Tell him to call, first thing to-morrow morning, at my office."
And with that the Doctor went off in his wet boots, committed a series of indiscretions, reached home, and fell ill.
In the wanderings of fever he talked of the Richlings, and in lucid moments inquired for them.
"Yes, yes," answered the sick Doctor"s physician, "they"re attended to.
Yes, all their wants are supplied. Just dismiss them from your mind." In the eyes of this physician the Doctor"s life was invaluable, and these patients, or pensioners, an unknown and, most likely, an inconsiderable quant.i.ty; two sparrows, as it were, worth a farthing. But the sick man lay thinking. He frowned.
"I wish they would go home."
"I have sent them."
"You have? Home to Milwaukee?"
"Yes."
"Thank G.o.d!"
He soon began to mend. Yet it was weeks before he could leave the house.
When one day he reentered the hospital, still pale and faint, he was prompt to express to the Mother-Superior the comfort he had felt in his sickness to know that his brother physician had sent those Richlings to their kindred.
The Sister shook her head. He saw the deception in an instant. As best his strength would allow, he hurried to the keeper of the rolls. There was the truth. Home? Yes,--to Prieur street,--discharged only one week before. He drove quickly to his office.
"Narcisse, you will find that young Mr. Richling living in Prieur street, somewhere between Conti and St. Louis. I don"t know the house; you"ll have to find it. Tell him I"m in my office again, and to come and see me."
Narcisse was no such fool as to say he knew the house. He would get the praise of finding it quickly.
"I"ll do my mose awduous, seh," he said, took down his coat, hung up his jacket, put on his hat, and went straight to the house and knocked. Got no answer. Knocked again, and a third time; but in vain. Went next door and inquired of a pretty girl, who fell in love with him at a glance.
"Yes, but they had moved. She wasn"t _jess ezac"ly_ sure where they _had_ moved to, _unless-n_ it was in that little house yondeh between St. Louis and Toulouse; and if they wasn"t there she didn"t know _where_ they was. People ought to leave words where they"s movin" at, but they don"t. You"re very welcome," she added, as he expressed his thanks; and he would have been welcome had he questioned her for an hour. His parting bow and smile stuck in her heart a six-months.
He went to the spot pointed out. As a Creole he was used to seeing very respectable people living in very small and plain houses. This one was not too plain even for his ideas of Richling, though it was but a little one-street-door-and-window affair, with an alley on the left running back into the small yard behind. He knocked. Again no one answered. He looked down the alley and saw, moving about the yard, a large woman, who, he felt certain, could not be Mrs. Richling.
Two little short-skirted, bare-legged girls were playing near him. He spoke to them in French. Did they know where Monsieu" Itchlin lived? The two children repeated the name, looking inquiringly at each other.
"_Non, miche._"--"No, sir, they didn"t know."
"_Qui reste ici?_" he asked. "Who lives here?"
"_Ici? Madame qui reste la c"est Mizziz Ri-i-i-ly!_" said one.
"Ya.s.s," said the other, breaking into English and rubbing a musquito off of her well-tanned shank with the sole of her foot, "tis Mizziz Ri-i-i-ly what live there. She jess move een. She"s got a lill baby.--Oh! you means dat lady what was in de Chatty Hawspill!"
"No, no! A real, nice _lady_. She nevva saw that Cha"ity Hospi"l."
The little girls shook their heads. They couldn"t imagine a person who had never seen the Charity Hospital.
"Was there n.o.body else who had moved into any of these houses about here lately?" He spoke again in French. They shook their heads. Two boys came forward and verified the testimony. Narcisse went back with his report: "Moved,--not found."
"I fine that ve"y d"oll, Doctah Seveeah," concluded the unaugmented, hanging up his hat; "some peop" always "ard to fine. I h-even notiz that sem thing w"en I go to colic" some bill. I dunno "ow" tis, Doctah, but I a.s.su" you I kin tell that by a man"s physio"nomie. n.o.body teach me that.