“She looks like a pretty hot mamma, for a country girl,” he says.
“Take this,” I says, giving him the chocolate. I took off my apron and went up there. She looked pretty good. One of them black-eyed ones that look like she’d as soon put a knife in you as not if you two-timed her. She looked pretty good. There wasn’t nobody else in the store; it was dinnertime.
“What can I do for you?” I says.
“Are you the doctor?” she says.
“Sure,” I says. She quit looking at me and was kind of looking around.
“Can we go back yonder?” she says.
It was just a quarter-past twelve, but I went and told Jody to kind of watch out and whistle if the old man come in sight, because he never got back before one.
“You better lay off of that,” Jody says. “He’ll fire your stern out of here so quick you can’t wink.”
“He don’t never get back before one,” I says. “You can see him go into the post-office. You keep your eye peeled, now, and give me a whistle.”
“What you going to do?” he says.
“You keep your eye out. I’ll tell you later.”
“Ain’t you going to give me no seconds on it?” he says.
“What the hell do you think this is?” I says; “a stud-farm? You watch out for him. I’m going into conference.”
So I go on to the back. I stopped at the glass and smoothed my hair, then I went behind the prescription case, where she was waiting. She is looking at the medicine cabinet, then she looks at me.
“Now, madam,” I says; “what is your trouble?”
“It’s the female trouble,” she says, watching me. “I got the money,” she says.
“Ah,” I says. “Have you got female troubles or do you want female troubles? If so, you come to the right doctor.” Them country people. Half the time they don’t know what they want, and the balance of the time they can’t tell it to you. The clock said twenty past twelve.
“No,” she says.
“No which?” I says.
“I ain’t had it,” she says. “That’s it.” She looked at me. “I got the money,” she says.
So I knew what she was talking about.
“Oh,” I says. “You got something in your belly you wish you didn’t have.” She looks at me. “You wish you had a little more or a little less, huh?”
“I got the money,” she says. “He said I could git something at the drugstore for hit.”
“Who said so?” I says.
“He did,” she says, looking at me.
“You don’t want to call no names,” I says. “The one that put the acorn in your belly? He the one that told you?” She don’t say nothing. “You ain’t married, are you?” I says. I never saw no ring. But like as not, they ain’t heard yet out there that they use rings.
“I got the money,” she says. She showed it to me, tied up in her handkerchief: a ten spot.
“I’ll swear you have,” I says. “He give it to you?”
“Yes,” she says.
“Which one?” I says. She looks at me. “Which one of them give it to you?”
“It ain’t but one,” she says. She looks at me.
“Go on,” I says. She don’t say nothing. The trouble about the cellar is, it ain’t but one way out and that’s back up the inside stairs. The clock says twenty-five to one. “A pretty girl like you,” I says.
She looks at me. She begins to tie the money back up in the handkerchief. “Excuse me a minute,” I says. I go around the prescription case. “Did you hear about that fellow sprained his ear?” I says. “After that he couldn’t even hear a belch.”
“You better get her out from back there before the old man comes,” Jody says.
“If you’ll stay up there in front where he pays you to stay, he won’t catch nobody but me,” I says.
He goes on, slow, toward the front. “What you doing to her, Skeet?” he says.
“I can’t tell you,” I says. “It wouldn’t be ethical. You go on up there and watch.”
“Say, Skeet,” he says.
“Ah, go on,” I says. “I ain’t doing nothing but filling a prescription.”
“He may not do nothing about that woman back there, but if he finds you monkeying with that prescription case, he’ll kick your stern clean down them cellar stairs.”
“My stern has been kicked by bigger bastards than him,” I says. “Go back and watch out for him, now.”
So I come back. The clock said fifteen to one. She is tying the money in the handkerchief. “You ain’t the doctor,” she says.
“Sure I am,” I says. She watches me. “Is it because I look too young, or am I too handsome?” I says. “We used to have a bunch of old water-jointed doctors here,” I says; “Jefferson used to be a kind of Old Doctors’ Home for them. But business started falling off and folks stayed so well until one day they found out that the women wouldn’t never get sick at all. So they run all the old doctors out and got us young good-looking ones that the women would like and then the women begun to get sick again and so business picked up. They’re doing that all over the country. Hadn’t you heard about it? Maybe it’s because you ain’t never needed a doctor.”
“I need one now,” she says.
“And you come to the right one,” I says. “I already told you that.”
“Have you got something for it?” she says. “I got the money.”
“Well,” I says, “of course a doctor has to learn all sorts of things while he’s learning to roll calomel; he can’t help himself. But I don’t know about your trouble.”
“He told me I could get something. He told me I could get it at the drugstore.”
“Did he tell you the name of it?” I says. “You better go back and ask him.”
She quit looking at me, kind of turning the handkerchief in
