ONE WAY TO GET AN EDUCATION. By Elizabeth Stuart Phelps.

“Is marm,1 the doctor, in?” I suppose that will be one of the disadvantages–for a little while–of being both a doctor and a “marm.” By-and-by, when there is a woman physician in every town2–in the good time surely coming, “Is doctor in?” will come as naturally and respectfully as it comes now on old Dr. Blue-pill’s steps, across the street. Though now I think of it, I do not know but the little fellow intended rather an unusual exhibition of confidence in my professional capacity, than a masculine and satiric fling at my sex. However that may be, “Marm, the doctor,” preparing attenuations of aconite in the little back office, laid down her bottle of tincture, promptly, and went to the door. Did I say a little fellow? It was a very little fellow. By a stretch of imagination you might have said that the tip end of the tip-top lock of his ragged hairs reached to the door-knob. His clothes were as ragged as his hair, and were covered with lint and dust. “Why, Bob!” said I. Bob was an old friend and patient; I had sewed up two broken heads for him, and taken him through scarlet fever, mumps and measles.3 “’Taint me,” said Bob. “It’s Jake. He’s got smashed into the mills, and boss sent me after ye. Golly! You’d ought to seen him. I seen him. Jammed his finger clean off into the gearing.” I had my hat and rubber-boots on before Bob had finished his message, and we started off together at a fast walk, splashing through the spring mud. “Poor Jake!” I said, between the splashes; not that I had the least idea who Jake was, but that I knew any Jake must be a poor Jake, who had lost a finger in the gearing. “I tell you,” said Bob, in his confidential way–for his size, Bob has the most confidential manner of any gentleman of my acquaintance–“I tell you! I don’t call him none of yer ‘poor Jakes!’” “That’s a pity,” said marm, the doctor, abstractedly. “No, ’taint, neither,” said Bob, the confident, stoutly. “It’s my ’pinion them chaps puts their fingers into the gearing a puppuss.”4 “What?” Marm, the doctor, suddenly attentive. “Yes, sir!” said Bob, mysteriously. “That’s my ’pinion, marm. They puts their fingers in a puppuss.” “But what could possibly”– “To git out. They puts in their fingers and then they puts out. Jim Shanks he done it. He loafed three weeks ’fore he healed over. He done it just in skatin’-time, and he had a pair o’ new rockers,5 Christmas, that he hadn’t tried. And I think,” said Bob, with an injured air, “it’s mighty hard on chaps as has to stay to work industrious. If I was a doctor, I’d take a hatchet to Jake. There! there’s where he lives–little yaller house ’tother side the road. That’s his mar to the door, hollerin’ behind her apron. I hope ye’ll make Jake holler!” With this charitable wish Bob splashed back to his work, and I splashed over to the little yellow house where Jake’s “mar” stood “hollerin’.” She stopped when I came up, and took me in to see my patient, drying her eyes as she went. My patient stood up straight in the middle of the room. It was a queer little patient. He was white to the lips, and covered with blood, and he trembled all over with pain, like a little hurt dog; but he did not cry out nor speak. “Sit down,” said I. Jack obeyed, very reluctantly. “He haint set down before,” said his mother[.] “I couldn’t make him. He jest stood there and stood there. O, the Lord have mercy!” For Jake when he sat down, sank down; sank a little more, a little more; then doubled up and fell,–or would have fallen. I caught him half way to the floor. “An’ he’s fented!” cried his mother. And of course he had. “I knew I should,” said the boy, as soon as he opened his eyes, “if I set down.” When Jake opened his eyes I looked into them. They were odd little eyes; set back far in his head, black as jet, and as restless as a star behind a cloud on a windy night. When they looked at me they snapped. Jake had an odd mouth, too, twisted like a cable-rope. “Very well,” said I, when Jake and I had looked at each other. “Where’s that hand? Hold it out, Jake!” Jake held it out. All the “marm” in me had the heart-ache at sight of that hand. It was such a little hand to put knives and forceps into, without so much as saying poor fellow! But Jake and I had understood each other, when I looked into his little snapping eyes. He wanted to be doctored, not to be “marmed.” The less fuss the better, for Jake. I might as well throw scalding water at his hand as to say poor Jake! He was quite contented with “Hold it out!” So he held out the little grimy, bloody hand. I put in the probe; Jake shut his snapping eyes. I took it out; Jake shut his twisted mouth. I laid the hand down gently. “Well?” said Jake, with his eyes still shut. “You’ve done a bad thing by that middle finger, I suppose you know, Jake.” “Wrenched her right off.” Jake nodded. “I should ha’ lost my arm, if I hadn’t. She jest twisted off, and snapped. Bob Smart picked it up. I seen him.” “But you see,” said the doctor, “you haven’t broken it at the joint. I must amputate the finger at the second joint.”6 Jake nodded again. “I’m sorry,” said the marm, in spite of the doctor. “Don’t you talk,” said Jake. “Jest jab away!” The marm held her tongue and the doctor jabbed away. Jake’s snapping eyes went quite behind a cloud, and Jake’s twisted mouth turned very white. But Jake never winced nor cried out. “I’m glad it is the left hand,” said I, as I took the last stitch in the last bandage. “So be I,” said Jake. “It was a fortunate chance,” said I. But Jake said nothing. “And I wonder that you did not lose the arm,” I said, another day, when I was dressing the mangled finger. But Jake said nothing. And another day, cheerily, “Never mind, Jake! Very likely you will do twice as much with three fingers as you would with four.” But Jake said nothing at all. One day Bob, the confidential, met and stopped me just starting to see my diptheria patients in the new parish. “Boy–on–behind!” shouted Bob, with an air of communicating a great secret, hidden from the world at large, but especially revealed to his personal and unerring insight. “Boy–on–be-hi-i-ind!” Sure enough. There was a boy on behind–not a very unusual sight, I must admit, on marm, the doctor’s buggy–a boy with a mouth like a cable-rope, and eyes like stars on a cloudy night, and three fingers on the left hand. “Dear me, Jake!” said I, for I had not seen Jake for some weeks. “Hand all right?” “All right,” said Jake. “Quite healed?” “Yes, marm,” said Jake. “Where are you going?” “Nowheres partikerlar.” “What did you want on behind my buggy?” “Not much, partikerlar.” “Anything to say to me?” “Nothing partikerlar.” “Supposed you jump in and ride to the new parish, and say it, then?” Jake supposed. “I’m kinder muddy.” “So am I.” Jake jumped in. I touched up Dolly, for I was already late about my morning’s calls, and Jake and I flew fast over the freckled face of the still, new parish woods. For some time we rode quite silently. Jake ran the hand with the little grimy stump through the arm-rest on the side of the buggy, and drew clouds enough over his eyes to have blown up a shower. To be sure, Jake never ran on behind my buggy without his reasons; but, to be sure, there should be no fuss made about Jake. If he had anything “partikelar” to say, he should say it. It was his turn to “jab away.” “See here,” said Jake, just as the diptheria houses struck into sight, “see here, you see.” “Yes,” I said, I saw. “What was it?” “Mar’s goin’ to send me to school,7 you see.” “When?” “Tomorrow.” “For how long?” “Three months.” “That’s very nice,” said I. “Yes,” said Jake, “that’s very nice.” “I thought,” said Jake, after a moment’s pause, “you’d like to know it.” Now that, I think, was one of the advantages of being both a doctor and a “marm.” Of course I was glad to know it, very glad; but not so glad as Jake himself, by any means. “No,” said Jake, gravely, like a grown man, “no, not so glad as I be.” “You think more of going to school than most boys, I suspect, Jake?” Jake must have thought more of something than most boys. He sat up straight in the carriage, and began to tremble. “See here. It’s jest like this. Now see here. It seems to me as ef I didn’t get an eddication, I should–I should be sech a fool!” said poor Jake. “It seems to me as ef I must have an eddication, any way. They wouldn’t send me.” Jake broke off, abruptly. “Mar’s got scairt, now. I’m goin’ for three months. I thought ye’d like to know it.” But Jake’s little grimy, mangled hand trembled in the rest; he turned such a twisted face up to me that I could not untie a strand of it. It was all a knot. So I sat and looked at Jake, and Jake sat and looked at me. “I’ve ben to work sence I was ’most eight year old,” said Jake. “Poor little fellow!” “An’ I alwers begged to go to school, and mar never sent me sence. I’m twelve years old next month, marm.” “Poor little fellow!” “I won’t be a poor little fellow!” The clouds in the little factory boy’s eyes broke8 suddenly, and the stars of a kind of manhood which we do not see every day, in factories or out, came out and shone all over his twisted face. “I won’t be a poor little fellow all my life! See if I do!” “I’m sure you won’t,” said I. “Well, then,” said Jake, “I’ll get out now and walk home.” But he stopped, half over the wheel. “Three months is a great deal, don’t you think it is?” “A great deal,” said I. Jake jumped over the wheel. “Mebbe they’ll give me the year out. Shouldn’t you think they might?” “I should think they might, indeed,” said I. Jake stood still and washed his feet in a little mud-puddle, while I got out and tied Dolly to the first diptheria post.9 “See here,” said Jake, again. I think that was the first time that I really had seen. Jake looked up. In an instant I knew that I had cut the knot of the little twisted face. Jake looked up, and Jake trembled so that he could scarcely stand in the mud-puddle. “I did it–marm–I did it a puppuss!” “O, Jake!” “I thought they’d let me out. I did it–O, I did!–I did it a puppuss. I put my finger in. I meant to. Look here! Don’t you tell. I THOUGHT YOU’D LIKE TO KNOW.” Of course it was a dreadful thing to do! And of course neither Jake nor I would want another boy to do it! But of course–or at least I thought so–it was too much of a story to be thrown away.