Dr. Bennett poured forth all this gratuitous advice between asthmatic wheezes without waiting for Kenneth to reply. He then turned to Jim Bradley with a parting word of advice.
“Jim, keep that hot iron on Emma’s stomach and give her those pills every hour. ’Tain’t nothin’ but the bellyache. She’ll be all right in an hour or two.”
Turning without another word, he half ambled, half shuffled out to his buggy, pulled himself up into it with more puffing and wheezing, and drove away. Jim Bradley took Kenneth’s arm and led him back on to the little porch, closing the door behind him.
“I’m pow’ful glad t’ see you, Ken. My, but you done growed sence you went up No’th! Befo’ you go in dar, I want t’ tell you somethin’. Emma’s been right po’ly fuh two days. Her stomach’s swelled up right sma’t and she’s been hollering all night. Dis mawning she don’t seem jus’ right in de haid. I tol her I was gwine to ast you to come see her, but she said she didn’t want no young nigger doctah botherin’ with her. But don’t you min’ her. I wants you to tell me what to do.”
Kenneth smiled.
“I’ll do what I can for her, Jim. But what about Dr. Bennett?”
“Dat’s a’ right. He give her some med’cine but it ain’t done her no good. She’s too good a woman fuh me to lose her, even if she do talk a li’l’ too much. You make out like you jus’ drap in to pass the time o’ day with her.”
Kenneth entered the dark and ill-smelling room. Opposite the door a fire smouldered in the fireplace, giving fitful spurts of flame that illumined the room and then died down again. There was no grate, the pieces of wood resting on crude andirons, blackened by the smoke of many fires. Over the mantel there hung a cheap charcoal reproduction of Jim and Emma in their wedding-clothes, made by some local “artist” from an old photograph. One or two nondescript chairs worn shiny through years of use stood before the fire. In one corner stood a dresser on which were various bottles of medicine and of “Madame Walker’s Hair Straightener.” On the floor a rug, worn through in spots and patched with fragments of other rugs all apparently of different colours, covered the space in front of the bed. The rest of the floor was bare and showed evidences of a recent vigorous scrubbing. The one window was closed tightly and covered over with a cracked shade, long since divorced from its roller, tacked to the upper ledge of the window.
On the bed Mrs. Bradley was rolling and tossing in great pain. Her eyes opened slightly when Kenneth approached the bed and closed again immediately as a new spasm of pain passed through her body. She moaned piteously and held her hands on her side, pressing down hard one hand over the other.
At a sign from Jim, Kenneth started to take her pulse.
“Go way from here and leave me ’lone! Oh, Lawdy, why is I suff’rin’ this way? I jus’ wish I was daid! Oh-oh-oh!”
This last as she writhed in agony. Kenneth drew back the covers, examined Mrs. Bradley’s abdomen, took her pulse. Every sign pointed to an attack of acute appendicitis. He informed Jim of his diagnosis.
“But, Doc, it ain’t dat trouble, ’cause Emma says dat was taken out a long time ago.”
“I can’t help what she says. She’s got appendicitis. You go get Dr. Bennett and tell him your wife has got to be operated on right away or she is going to die. Get a move on you now! If it was my case, I would operate within an hour. Stop by my house and tell Bob to bring me an ice bag as quick as he can.”
Jim hurried away to catch Dr. Bennett. Kenneth meanwhile did what he could to relieve Mrs. Bradley’s suffering. In a few minutes Bob came with the ice bag. Then Jim returned with his face even more doleful than it had been when Kenneth had told him how sick his wife was.
“Doc Bennett says he don’t care what you do. He got kinder mad when I told him you said it was ’pendicitis, and tol’ me dat if I couldn’t take his word, he wouldn’t have anything mo’ to do with Emma. He seemed kinder mad ’cause you said it was mo’ than a stomachache. Said he wa’n’t goin’ to let no young nigger doctor tell him his bus’ness. So, Doc, you’ll have t’ do what you thinks bes’.”
“All right, I’ll do it. First thing, I’m going to move your wife over to my office. We can put her up in the spare room. Bob will drive her over in the car. Get something around her and you’d better come on over with her. I’ll get Dr. Williams to help me.”
Kenneth was jubilant at securing his first surgical case since his return to Central City, though his pleasure was tinged with doubt as to the ethics of the manner in which it had come to him. He did not let that worry him very long, however, but began his preparations for the operation.
First he telephoned to Mrs. Johnson,
