All Bedlam Courses Past (one hundred forty-five)

All Bedlam Courses Past

Chapter Six

Short Days

(part one hundred forty-five)

Dr. Mangin rode his own horse, following Clark. Lawrence, larded with cornbread and sausage, apple pie and cheese, trotted home on foot, seeing the farmer veer and the doctor come on. Before witness of Junior, Samuel had promised to sleep on the Clarks’ window seat, help as told, bother no adult.

“I gave him two chores, and he did me half of one,” Junior said. “Got no complaints about himself, though.”

When Mangin drew down her jaw, Mary stirred to a bleary revival, peering with some hardness she’d long felt against him. “I don’t plan being dunned for what I never asked.”

“Now, Ma’am, lay your head back. Time in the world for worries.”

To Lawrence, whether Mary dozed or not, Mangin said: “Keep a fire in the stove. A warm room does better than a pile of blankets. But have a window open, also. That will bring on the best sleep. How’s your water come? From the pump? Boil it.”

Lawrence listened nudging his purchases to the doctor’s attention. Mrs. Clark stepped to lift each, thinking a lower thought of the pills than the tonic.

But Mangin said, “Give her a spoonful of tonic if you like, in a glass of milk. Warm milk, when she asks for it. Time and bedrest, with the typhoid. But…”

He took out a pocketbook and began to write.

Mrs. McClurkin blocked Lawrence at the archway, as though he might lumber against the blue china she kept square in the visitor’s sight; her dining room right, her sitting parlor left. Her sideboard with the fancy pieces, her wall-hung cupboard with the plates and cups, dead ahead.

He smelled like barn, and the McClurkins were town people, whatever else they were.

“How is that, Mary’s come down with the fever? Did you have a doctor?”

“Mangin.”

A twist of the mouth.

“Mrs. Clark said to come get Lidah, to nurse her mother.”

“Oh, Clarks? It was them set you on to him?”

To Dr. Mangin? He nodded, but confused.

“Well, Clarks are Baptist.”

Was there sense in it? McClurkins were not Church of Rome either, or (oddly) Gremots would not have permitted the marriage. “And so, ma’am, would you have her pack? The wagon’s at the curb. I can wait outside.”

“I will tell my daughter-in-law to have her pack. It’s not my business ordering Lidah Paton. Don’t bring her back here.”

156

Bedlam

All Bedlam Courses Past (part one hundred forty-six)

(2024, Stephanie Foster)