Mark Twain's sketches, new and old now first published in complete form |
EXPERIENCE OF THE McWILLIAMSES
WITH MEMBRANOUS CROUP. |
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 | Mark Twain's sketches, new and old |  |
EXPERIENCE OF THE McWILLIAMSES
WITH MEMBRANOUS CROUP.
[As related to the author of this book by Mr.
McWilliams, a pleasant New York gentleman
whom the said author met by chance on a
journey.]
WELL, to go back to where I was before
I digressed to explain to you how that
frightful and incurable disease, membranous
croup, was ravaging the town and
driving all mothers mad with terror, I called
Mrs. McWilliams's attention to little Penelope
and said:
“Darling, I wouldn't let that child be chewing that pine stick if I were you.”
“Precious, where is the harm in it?” said she, but at the same time preparing
suggestion without arguing it; that is, married women.
I replied:
“Love, it is notorious that pine is the least nutritious wood that a child can eat.”
My wife's hand paused, in the act of taking the stick, and returned itself to her
lap. She bridled perceptibly, and said:
“Hubby, you know better than that. You know you do. Doctors all say that
the turpentine in pine wood is good for weak back and the kidneys.”
“Ah—I was under a misapprehension. I did not know that the child's kidneys
and spine were affected, and that the family physician had recommended—”
“Who said the child's spine and kidneys were affected?”
“My love, you intimated it.”
“The idea! I never intimated anything of the kind.”
“Why my dear, it hasn't been two minutes since you said—”
“Bother what I said! I don't care what I did say. There isn't any harm in the
child's chewing a bit of pine stick if she wants to, and you know it perfectly well.
And she shall chew it, too. So there, now!”
“Say no more, my dear. I now see the force of your reasoning, and I will go
and order two or three cords of the best pine wood to-day. No child of mine shall
want while I—”
“O please go along to your office and let me have some peace. A body can never
make the simplest remark but you must take it up and go to arguing and arguing
and arguing till you don't know what you are talking about, and you never do.”
“Very well, it shall be as you say. But there is a want of logic in your last
remark which—”
However, she was gone with a flourish before I could finish, and had taken the
child with her. That night at dinner she confronted me with a face as white as a
sheet:
“O, Mortimer, there's another! Little Georgie Gordon is taken.”
“Membranous croup?”
“Membranous croup.”
“Is there any hope for him?”
“None in the wide world. O, what is to become of us!”
By and by a nurse brought in our Penelope to say good-night and offer the
customary prayer at the mother's knee. In the midst of “Now I lay me down to
sleep,” she gave a slight cough! My wife fell back like one stricken with death.
But the next moment she was up and brimming with the activities which terror
inspires.
She commanded that the child's crib be removed from the nursery to our
bed-room; and she went along to see the order executed. She took me with her,
of course. We got matters arranged with speed. A cot bed was put up in my
wife's dressing room for the
nurse. But now Mrs. McWilliams
said we were too far
away from the other baby, and
what if he were to have the symptoms
in the night—and she
blanched again, poor thing.
We then restored the crib
and the nurse to the nursery
and put up a bed for ourselves
in a room adjoining.
Presently, however, Mrs.
McWilliams said suppose the
baby should catch it from Penelope?
This thought struck
a new panic to her heart, and
the tribe of us could not get the
crib out of the nursery again
fast enough to satisfy my wife,
though she assisted in her own person and well nigh pulled the crib to pieces in her
frantic hurry.
We moved down stairs; but there was no place there to stow the nurse, and Mrs.
McWilliams said the nurse's experience would be an inestimable help. So we
gladness, like storm-buffeted birds that have found their nest again.
Mrs. McWilliams sped to the nursery to see how things were going on there.
She was back in a moment with a new dread. She said:
“What can make Baby sleep so?”
I said:
“Why, my darling, Baby always sleeps like a graven image.”
“I know. I know; but there's something peculiar about his sleep, now. He
seems to—to—he seems to breathe so regularly. O, this is dreadful.”
“But my dear he always breathes regularly.”
“Oh, I know it, but there's something frightful about it now. His nurse is too
young and inexperienced. Maria shall stay there with her, and be on hand if
anything happens.”
“That is a good idea, but who will help you?”
“You can help me all I want. I wouldn't allow anybody to do anything but
myself, any how, at such a time as this.”
I said I would feel mean to lie abed and sleep, and leave her to watch and toil
over our little patient all the weary night.—But she reconciled me to it. So old
Maria departed and took up her ancient quarters in the nursery.
Penelope coughed twice in her sleep.
“Oh, why don't that doctor come! Mortimer, this room is too warm. This
room is certainly too warm. Turn off the register—quick!”
I shut it off, glancing at the thermometer at the same time, and wondering to
myself if 70 was too warm for a sick child.
The coachman arrived from down town, now, with the news that our physician
was ill and confined to his bed.—Mrs. McWilliams turned a dead eye upon me,
and said in a dead voice:
“There is a Providence in it. It is foreordained. He never was sick before.—
Never. We have not been living as we ought to live, Mortimer. Time and time
again I have told you so. Now you see the result. Our child will never get well.
Be thankful if you can forgive yourself; I never can forgive myself.”
I said, without intent to hurt, but with heedless choice of words, that I could not
see that we had been living such an abandoned life.
“Mortimer! Do you want to bring the judgment upon Baby, too!”
Then she began to cry, but suddenly exclaimed:
“The doctor must have sent medicines!”
I said:
“Certainly. They are here. I was only waiting for you to give me a chance.”
“Well do give them to me! Don't you know that every moment is precious
now? But what was the use in sending medicines, when he knows that the disease
is incurable?”
I said that while there was life there was hope.
“Hope! Mortimer, you know no more what you are talking about than the child
unborn. If you would—. As I live, the directions say give one teaspoonful once
an hour! Once an hour!—as if we had a whole year before us to save the child
in! Mortimer, please hurry. Give the poor perishing thing a table-spoonful, and
try to be quick!”
“Why, my dear, a table-spoonful might—”
“Don't drive me frantic!.....There, there, there, my precious, my own; it's
nasty bitter stuff, but it's good for Nelly—good for Mother's precious darling; and
it will make her well. There, there, there, put the little head on Mamma's breast
and go to sleep, and pretty soon—Oh, I know she can't live till morning! Mortimer,
a table-spoonful every half hour will—. Oh, the child needs belladonna too; I
know she does—and aconite. Get them, Mortimer. Now do let me have my way.
You know nothing about these things.”
We now went to bed, placing the crib close to my wife's pillow. All this turmoil
had worn upon me, and within two minutes I was something more than half asleep.
Mrs. McWilliams roused me:
“Darling, is that register turned on?”
“No.”
“I thought as much. Please turn it on at once. This room is cold.”
I turned it on, and presently fell asleep again. I was aroused once more:
“Dearie, would you mind moving the crib to your side of the bed? It is nearer
the register.”
I moved it, but had a collision with the rug and woke up the child. I dozed off
came murmuring remotely through the fog of my drowsiness:
“Mortimer, if we only had some goose-grease—will you ring?”
I climbed dreamily out, and stepped on a cat, which responded with a protest
and would have got a convincing kick for it if a chair had not got it instead.
“Now, Mortimer, why do you want to turn up the gas and wake up the child
again?”
“Because I want to see how much I am hurt, Caroline.”
“Well look at the chair, too—I have no doubt it is ruined. Poor cat, suppose
you had—” “Now I am
not going to suppose anything
about the cat. It never
would have occurred if Maria
had been allowed to remain
here and attend to these duties,
which are in her line and are not
in mine.” “Now Mortimer,
I should think you would
be ashamed to make a remark
like that. It is a pity if you
cannot do the few little things
I ask of you at such an awful
time as this when our
child—” “There, there,
I will do anything you want.
But I can't raise anybody with
this bell. They're all gone to bed.
Where is the goose-grease?”
“On the mantel piece in the nursery. If you'll step there and speak to Maria—”
I fetched the goose-grease and went to sleep again: Once more I was called:
“Mortimer, I so hate to disturb you, but the room is still too cold for me to try
to apply this stuff. Would you mind lighting the fire? It is all ready to touch a
match to.”
I dragged myself out and lit the fire, and then sat down disconsolate.
“Mortimer, don't sit there and catch your death of cold. Come to bed.”
“As I was stepping in, she said:
“But wait a moment. Please give the child some more of the medicine.”
Which I did. It was a medicine which made a child more or less lively; so my
wife made use of its waking interval to strip it and grease it all over with the goose-oil.
I was soon asleep once more, but once more I had to get up.
“Mortimer, I feel a draft. I feel it distinctly. There is nothing so bad for this
disease as a draft. Please move the crib in front of the fire.”
I did it; and collided with the rug again, which I threw in the fire. Mrs. Mc
Williams sprang out of bed and
rescued it and we had some
words. I had another trifling
interval of sleep, and then got up,
by request, and constructed
a flax-seed poultice. This was
placed upon the child's breast
and left there to do its healing
work.
A wood fire is
not a permanent thing. I
got up every twenty minutes
and renewed ours, and this
gave Mrs. Mc Williams the opportunity
to shorten the times
of giving the medicines by ten
minutes, which was a great satisfaction
to her. Now and then,
between times, I reorganized the
the flax-seed poultices, and applied sinapisms and other sorts of blisters where
unoccupied places could be found upon the child. Well, toward morning the
wood gave out and my wife wanted me to go down cellar and get some more.
I said:
“My dear, it is a laborious job, and the child must be nearly warm enough, with
I did not finish, because I was interrupted. I lugged wood up from below for
some little time, and then turned in and fell to snoring as only a man can whose
strength is all, gone and whose soul is worn out. Just at broad daylight I felt a
grip on my shoulder that brought me to my senses suddenly.—My wife was glaring
down upon me and gasping. As soon as she could command her tongue she said:
“It is all over! All over! The child's perspiring! What shall we do?
“Mercy, how you terrify me! I don't know what we ought to do. Maybe if
we scraped her and put her in the draft again—”
“O, idiot! There is not a moment to lose! Go for the doctor. Go yourself.
Tell him he must come, dead or alive.”
I dragged that poor sick man from his bed and brought him. He looked at the
child and said she was not dying. This was joy unspeakable to me, but it made
my wife as mad as if he had offered her a personal affront. Then he said the
child's cough was only caused by some trifling irritation or other in the throat. At
this I thought my wife had a mind to show him the door.—Now the doctor said he
would make the child cough harder and dislodge the trouble. So he gave her
something that sent her into a spasm of coughing, and presently up came a little
wood splinter or so.
“This child has no membranous croup,” said he. “She has been chewing a bit
of pine shingle or something of the kind, and got some little slivers in her throat.
They won't do her any hurt.”
“No,” said I, “I can well believe that. Indeed the turpentine that is in them
is very good for certain sorts of diseases that are peculiar to children. My wife
will tell you so.”
But she did not. She turned away in disdain and left the room; and since that
time there is one episode in our life which we never refer to. Hence the tide of
our days flows by in deep and untroubled serenity.
[Very few married men have such an experience as McWillms's, and so the author of this book
thought that maybe the novelty of it would give it a passing interest to the reader.]
| Mark Twain's sketches, new and old | |