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Page 4
So one day, after this had happened several times, Aunt Frances really
did send for the doctor, who came briskly in, just as Elizabeth Ann had
always seen him, with his little square black bag smelling of leather,
his sharp eyes, and the air of bored impatience which he always wore in
that house. Elizabeth Ann was terribly afraid to see him, for she felt
in her bones he would say she had galloping consumption and would die
before the leaves cast a shadow. This was a phrase she had picked up
from Grace, whose conversation, perhaps on account of her asthma, was
full of references to early graves and quick declines.
And yet--did you ever hear of such a case before?--although Elizabeth
Ann when she first stood up before the doctor had been quaking with fear
lest he discover some deadly disease in her, she was very much hurt
indeed when, after thumping her and looking at her lower eyelid inside
out, and listening to her breathing, he pushed her away with a little
jerk and said: "There's nothing in the world the matter with that child.
She's as sound as a nut! What she needs is ..."--he looked for a moment
at Aunt Frances's thin, anxious face, with the eyebrows drawn together
in a knot of conscientiousness, and then he looked at Aunt Harriet's
thin, anxious face with the eyebrows drawn up that very same way, and
then he glanced at Grace's thin, anxious face peering from the door
waiting for his verdict--and then he drew a long breath, shut his lips
and his little black case very tightly, and did not go on to say what it
was that Elizabeth Ann needed.
Of course Aunt Frances didn't let him off as easily as that, you may be
sure. She fluttered around him as he tried to go, and she said all sorts
of fluttery things to him, like "But, Doctor, she hasn't gained a pound
in three months ... and her sleep ... and her appetite ... and her
nerves ..."
[Illustration: Elizabeth Ann stood up before the doctor.]
The doctor said back to her, as he put on his hat, all the things
doctors always say under such conditions: "More beefsteak ... plenty of
fresh air ... more sleep ... SHE'll be all right ..." but his voice did not
sound as though he thought what he was saying amounted to much. Nor did
Elizabeth Ann. She had hoped for some spectacular red pills to be taken
every half-hour, like those Grace's doctor gave her whenever she felt
low in her mind.
And just then something happened which changed Elizabeth Ann's life
forever and ever. It was a very small thing, too. Aunt Harriet coughed.
Elizabeth Ann did not think it at all a bad-sounding cough in comparison
with Grace's hollow whoop; Aunt Harriet had been coughing like that ever
since the cold weather set in, for three or four months now, and nobody
had thought anything of it, because they were all so much occupied in
taking care of the sensitive, nervous little girl who needed so much
care.
And yet, at the sound of that little discreet cough behind Aunt
Harriet's hand, the doctor whirled around and fixed his sharp eyes on
her, with all the bored, impatient look gone, the first time Elizabeth
Ann had ever seen him look interested. "What's that? What's that?" he
said, going over quickly to Aunt Harriet. He snatched out of his little
bag a shiny thing with two rubber tubes attached, and he put the ends of
the tubes in his ears and the shiny thing up against Aunt Harriet, who
was saying, "It's nothing, Doctor ... a little teasing cough I've had this
winter. And I meant to tell you, too, but I forgot it, that that sore
spot on my lungs doesn't go away as it ought to."
The doctor motioned her very impolitely to stop talking, and listened
very hard through his little tubes. Then he turned around and looked at
Aunt Frances as though he were angry at her. He said, "Take the child
away and then come back here yourself."
And that was almost all that Elizabeth Ann ever knew of the forces which
swept her away from the life which had always gone on, revolving about
her small person, exactly the same ever since she could remember.
You have heard so much about tears in the account of Elizabeth Ann's
life so far that I won't tell you much about the few days which
followed, as the family talked over and hurriedly prepared to obey the
doctor's verdict, which was that Aunt Harriet was very, very sick and
must go away at once to a warm climate, and Aunt Frances must go, too,
but not Elizabeth Ann, for Aunt Frances would need to give all her time
to taking care of Aunt Harriet. And anyhow the doctor didn't think it
best, either for Aunt Harriet or for Elizabeth Ann, to have them in the
same house.
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