Part 12 (1/2)

One of the next interesting i hi about our town on crutches, hishis patients, when he himself appeared to be so ill as to requirefrom some severe form of rheumatism at the time, but this, apparently, was not sufficient to keep himent probably needed his servicesthings about Dr Gridley, as I early began to note, was his profound indifference to what ht be called his material welfare Why, I have often asked nore the gauds and plaudits and pleasures of the gayer, sht readily have shone, to thus devote himself and all his talents to a simple rural community? That he was an extrehtest doubt Other physicians froo, were repeatedly calling him into consultation That he knew life--much of it--as only a priest or a doctor of true wisdom can know it, was evident from many incidents, of which I subsequently learned, and yet here he was, hidden away in this simple rural world, surrounded probably by his Rabelais, his Burton, his Frazer, and his Montaigne, and dreahts?

”Say,” an old patient, friend and neighbor of his once remarked to me years later, e had both moved to another city, ”one of the sweetest recollections of my life is to picture old Dr Gridley, Ed Boulder who used to run the hotel over at Sleichertown, Congress out in front of Boulder's hotel over there of a su over the funny stories which Boulder was always telling while they aiting for the Pierceton bus Dr Gridley's laugh, so soft to begin with, but growing in force and volureen fields all around

And Mrs Calder's drove of geese over the way honking, too, as geese henever people begin to talk or laugh It was delicious”

One of the nificant traits of his character, as may be inferred, was his absolute indifference to actual money, the very cash, one would think, hich he needed to buy his own supplies During his life, his wife, as a thrifty, hard-working woman, used frequently, as I learned after, to coe where he did not need to, nor collect where he knew that the people were poor

”Once he becahter once told me, ”because he offered to collect for hi his patients for their debts, and another time he dissolved a partnershi+p with a local physician who insisted that he ought to be enerosity on his part frequently led to so results On one occasion, for instance, when he was sitting out on his front lawn in Warsaw, ss crossed in the fashi+on known as ”jack-knife,” a poorly dressed faran to explain that his as sick and that he had coet the doctor's advice He seemed quite disturbed, and every now and then wiped his brohile the doctor listened with an occasional question or gently accented ”uh-huh, uh-huh,” until the story was all told and the advice ready to be received When this was given in a low, reassuring tone, he took from his pocket his little book of blanks and wrote out a prescription, which he gave to the ain The latter took out a silver dollar and handed it to the doctor, who turned it idly between his fingers for a few seconds, then searched in his pocket for awith them a while as he talked, finally handed back the dollar to the faro down to the drug-store and have the prescription filled I think your ill be all right”

When he had gone the doctor sat there a long ti the s his own dollar in his hand

After a tihter, as present, and said:

”I was just thinking what a short ti tiuess he needs the dollar enerosity he was once sitting in his yard of a su, a favorite pleasure of his, when two ate from opposite directions and simultaneously hailed him He arose and went out tojust inside the hall as she usually hen her husband was outside, leaned forward in her chair to see through the door, and took note of who they were Both were men in whose families the doctor had practiced for years One was a prosperous farmer who always paid his ”doctor's bills,” and the other was a miller, a ”ne'er-do-well,” with a delicate wife and a family of sickly children, who never asked for a statement and never had one sent hireat intervals handed the doctor a dollar in payment for his many services Both men talked to him a little while and then rode away, after which he returned to the house, calling to Enoch, his old negro servant, to bring his horse, and then went into his study to prepare his medicine case Mrs Gridley, as naturally interested in his financial welfare, and who at tienerosity stand wholly in the way of his judgment, inquired of him as he caoing with?”

”Why, Miss Susan,” he replied--a favoritehis wife, of who that he knew very hat she was thinking about, ”I'ht,” she replied with ood a friend of yours as W----, and he always pays you”

”Now, Miss Susan,” he returned coaxingly, ”N---- can go to Pierceton and get Doctor Bodine, and W---- can't get any one but me You surely wouldn't have him left without any one?”

What the effect of such an attitude was ed when it is related that there was scarcely a man, woman or child in the entire county who had not at some time or other been directly or indirectly benefited by the kindly wisdom of this Samaritan He was nearly everybody's doctor, in the last extremity, either as consultant or otherwise Everywhere he went, by every lane and hollow that he fared, he was constantly being called into service by so; and in both cases he was equally keen to give the sa in the very poor--a humanness possibly--which detained and fascinated hier at their bedsides than anywhere else

”He was always doing it,” said his daughter, ”and my s earthly, papa loved an unfortunate person; the greater the reater his care”

In illustration of his easy and practically controlling attitude toward the very well-to-do, ere his patients also, let me narrate this:

In our toas an old and very distinguished colonel, comparatively rich and very crotchety, who had won considerable honors for hiure, and very much looked up to by all People were, in the hly respectful of him

A remote, stern soul, yet to Dr Gridley he was little more than a child or schoolboy--one to be bossed on occasion and made to behave Plainly, the doctor had the conviction that all of us, great and small, were very much in need of sympathy and care, and that he, the doctor, was the one to provide it At any rate, he had known the colonel long and well, and in a public place--at the principal street corner, for instance, or in the postoffice where we school children ont to congregate--it was not at all surprising to hear him take the old colonel, as quite frail now, to task for not taking better care of hi out, for instance, without his rubbers, or his overcoat, in wet or chilly weather, and in other ways ain!” I once heard hi the postoffice and he was entering (there was no rural free delivery in those days) ”--walking around without your rubbers, and no overcoat! You want to get ain, do you?”

”It didn't seem so damp when I started out, Doctor”

”And of course it was too o back! You wouldn't feel that way if you couldn't come out at all, perhaps!”

”I'll put 'eo back to the house and put 'em on”

The doctor merely stared after him quizzically, like an old schoolmaster, as the rather stately colonel marched off to his hora-hearted ly irascible temper He was the victim of some obscure malady which medicine apparently failed at tireat deal, so much so that the doctor had at last discovered that if he could get Mr Pegrah the ood a remedy as any, and in consequence he was occasionally inclined to try it

Aentleman was the possessor of a handso went the rounds locally, he once promised to leave to the doctor when he died At the sareatly--a fact which the doctor knew Finding the old gentleht, not to be dealt with, indeed, in any reasoning way, the doctor returned to his home, and early the next day, without any other word, sent old Enoch, his negro servant, around to get, as he said, the buffalo robe--a request which would indicate, of course that the doctor had concluded that old Mr

Pegram had died, or was about to--a hopeless case When ushered into the latter's presence, Enoch began innocently enough: