The Travels of Jaimie McPheeters (Arbor House Library of Contemporary Americana) (68 page)

“Mr. Peters, I’m going to prescribe a remedy that should do you a world of good. It’s the only known specific for patience during a medical consultation of this kind. Your health, sir.”

Mr. Peters inclined his head slightly, then tossed off that raw whiskey without so much as a twitch.

“Thank you, sir. One good turn deserves another, so if I may, I’ll just suggest a prescription for you.” He picked up a tin lying in view on the stand. “Known pharmacologically as Tea.”

My father sat down and had a look at himself, his torn and muddied trousers, his threadbare coat, his hat (removing it to work the lid up and down with his hand) and at last, the stand itself, together, it seemed, with our miserable circumstance in general.

“A shabby old man in defeat. Not pretty, Mr. Peters.”

“Oh, come, sir,” cried Mr. Peters with great good cheer, “it isn’t all that bad. We must take steps, we must dedicate ourselves toward, as it were, reconstruction. It’s a matter of business. First, as stated, the Tea.” (I’d got our spirit-pot going and now began to pour out three cups.) “Then the question of attire. I dislike to sound picayune, but there are certain features of your present costume which fall below the level of strictly good usage. I suggest—”

“You’ve struck a snag there.” My father produced a handful of silver. “I have exactly $2.40, the bulk of it supplied by an inebriated miner for whom I splinted up a leg, quite possibly the wrong one.”

“Then there appears only one thing to do. We must visit my personal tailor. And we must visit him at once.”

“Do you mean to say you wish to outfit me from your own purse? Why?”

“I assure you, sir, it’s business. Purely business. We must remember that I have a certain responsibility to Client.” He acted a trifle embarrassed, as if, indeed, his actions were
not
good business. But he’d made up his mind, so after an exchange in which my father unsuccessfully tried to learn the name of Mr, Peters’ client, then gave some of his usual hogwash about how he insisted on making a “note of hand” for the debt, we struck out down the street. They’d laid plank sidewalks along here the month before, and Mr. Peters,
for some reason, seemed dead-set against stepping on the cracks. They weren’t easy to miss. He skipped, teetering this way and that, balanced, hopped, fell back, and danced the tightrope, and altogether, before we arrived, I was as nervous as a cat. Tired, too. I’d have been happy to see him go back to the former oddity of trying to keep everybody in step. That one was comparatively easy to handle.

At the tailor’s, some measurements were taken on my father for a new coat and trousers, by a very sissified man that acted as if he didn’t relish the job. Then Mr. Peters left us, to disappear into wherever he came from. Before he did, standing there on the sidewalk, looking first at me and then at my father, switching his expression back and forth from the perfectly tight line of his mouth to his business smile, he finally sighed, and let his face go slack. Despite his manner, I had the idea that he wasn’t a natural-born businessman at all, but had to work at it pretty hard.

“Doctor,” he said in a different voice. “This procedure of living in a tent on the public square. Is it good? Is it wise? And what about the boy?”

“Business?” inquired my father, wrinkling up the corners of his eyes.

“Sir, from the cradle to the grave, everything is business, in one sense or another. My father, a banker of prominence, drilled that point home to me each year of my childhood, and he was correct, absolutely correct. My inquiry is based on business.”

“Mr. Peters,” said my father, “you’re a humbug. I don’t think you care any more about business than I do. It’s only a triumph of will over instinct. I’ve never understood your interest in us, but we feel that it is, in some way, benign. So I’ll answer what would appear, in another, to be impertinence. We are going back to our tent, Jaimie and I, put our house, or tent, in order, resume the practice of medicine, wearing your clothes, attending to duty, forswearing all games of chance and intoxicants, and find proper lodgings as soon as prosperity permits. Does that suit you?”

Mr. Peters sighed. “I wish I could make available my address, in
case the need arose. But it would be in direct violation of my injunction by Client. That would never do.”

“Unbusinesslike,” said my father.

“I’ll bid you good day,” said Mr. Peters, stiffly. We had the impression that he was professionally, but not personally, offended.

We walked down the street toward our tent, my father and I, in the warm but blustery March weather, and neither of us could find much to say. I felt a little down, and wished we were back at Vernon. Besides, I wasn’t exactly proud of my father. So I just walked along.

At the stand, he said, “Sit down a minute, laddie. Let’s have a talk.”

I wasn’t in the humor, but I perched on the edge of the bench and sat staring off across the Plaza. For some reason, I couldn’t get up the interest to look at him.

“Son,” he said, “how would you like to go back home?”

“To the diggings?”

“To Louisville.”

Then I
did
look at him, because this was about the
last
thing I expected. It made me kind of sore, and I spoke up in a way I’d never done before.

“You falling down on that, too?”

It shook him; he turned a couple of shades paler, which wasn’t easy to tell because of the stubble, sprinkled through with gray now, that covered his chin.

“I don’t mind your saying that. I hate to
hear
you say it, but you’ve got the right. I suppose there isn’t a single thing I haven’t botched from start to finish.”

“Up to lately, you’ve done fine. Nobody could have worked harder.”

“Well, you’ve heard the old saying about throwing good money after bad. Maybe the simplest thing to do is face reality, admit defeat, grow up—me, I mean—troop back to Louisville, and dig in, whatever the pain. It’s quite possible I’ve been running long enough. In all truth, your mother was right, she always has been.
Here’s what we can do, boy. We can take the Santa Fe Trail, the southerly route, new country, new adventures, maybe a little hike over to Mexico—always wanted to see it—and who knows how we’ll wind up? Why”—his face began to take on a very familiar look—“we’re apt to stumble across a fortune! Opp—”

I got up abruptly and opened the stand.

I said, “I worked a wheelbarrow for some Mexicans up near Vernon, three dollars for ten hours. Down where
they
lived—in Mexico, that is—they’d heard about the opportunities in California. I’ll be right here, in San Francisco. I don’t mind saying I’d like to see my mother and Hannah and Mary and Aunt Kitty, but we said we’d give it a year, and that’s what I’m giving it. Now you do just what you please.”

There was a silence, then he said, “Son, what have you done these last weeks? I can’t seem to pick any one day out of the rest.”

“Run the stand, hid what money I could so as to eat, talked, and worked, with Reverend Ebersohl, and slept in a tent. Is there something better?”

I’m not proud of those words, for he looked terrible. He arose and said, “Put on some hot water; I need a shave.” And in a minute, while scraping away with his razor, he said, “There’s no use in saying I’m ashamed. It won’t solve anything. Deeds speak louder than words. John Barleycorn is buried as of today. We
will
stick out our year. I’ll work up a practice you’ll be proud of. And we’ll have the family here by Christmas. Son, reach in my medical bag and hand me that bottle of whiskey. Right there, that’s it, the one that says Back Liniment on the label.”

“What a wonderful start—”

“—as a lotion after shaving,” he went on, turning the bottle up in his hand and slapping the liquid over his face, “it can’t be beat. Ah, yes, very efficacious; the only disagreeable feature is the smell. Dear me, I’m afraid it’s too acute; I’ll never get used to it.” He poured the rest on the ground, then, stepping over a few yards beside a bush, scooped up a mound of dirt and stuck the bottle
upside down at the head. “Behold—John Barleycorn’s grave. We’ll decorate it daily.”

He’d got going now, and to give him credit, he spruced himself up handsome. He repaired the hat, cleaned his shoes, cleaned off his clothes and had them pressed by a Chinaman, and washed out what laundry the Reverend Ebersohl hadn’t already done. Then he straightened up the tent from stem to stern and came out with pride in his eyes. I’d never seen him look quite so officious. It was as clear as daylight he’d come to some kind of decision. But I wasn’t entirely convinced; I’d been here before.

We had to stop and serve figs and molasses and sassafras tea to four English sailors off a ship in the harbor. They said both their food and water had turned weevily, and their teeth were loose in their heads from scurvy. It was close on to six o’clock.

“Shut her up for the day, my boy,” cried my father when they left. “We have an errand to do.”

Call me crazy, but he said we were going up to the Powell Street Methodist Church and sign the pledge.

“I’m
not signing a pledge,” I said. “I haven’t any reason to, and never will, if I can help it.”

“I’ve never believed in that cant myself, but there is a tide in the affairs of men which, taken at the flood, leads on to fortune, especially in San Francisco. I mean to strike while the iron’s hot.”

As we turned to go, a man with a wooden leg that my father had become acquainted with, from the Sandwich Islands, a Mr. Hobson, perfectly white, came thump-thumping up and cried, “Come on, doc, they’re empaneling veniremen to try Bill McGurn. He’s guilty as hell. Being as I saw the whole thing, I’m unprejudiced by idle talk, so we can sleep right through.”

“Friend Hobson,” said my father, “I am no longer a career juror. That belonged to my Barleycorn period. I am now a physician only.”

“Why, doc, you’ll drink up all your painkiller.”

“If you’ll excuse us, we have an appointment to keep. Call in at my office any time.”

“Best of luck, doc,” Mr. Hobson called out cheerfully. He was a good enough fellow, and you could excuse him for drinking. He’d been on a trading trip through the southerly islands and been captured by some cannibals that cut off his leg, boiled it and ate it right in front of him, while he was conscious and watched them serve it out in pieces. Before they were finished, another bunch of outriggers pulled up, full of friendlies, and he was rescued. So now he was alive, though drunk, but he had a wooden leg. It was all written up in the
Alta Californian
, under the heading of “A Grisly Ordeal.” He carried the clipping around with him, and showed it to anybody that would look, after which he commonly mooched the price of a drink. People were very glad to pay it, in order to get away and think about something else.

When we reached the church, Reverend Ebersohl was preparing to leave for his evening street preaching. And when he heard why we’d come, he didn’t seem happy. Anybody else, he’d a signed them up in a hurry, but with my father, he hated to see him demean himself in that way.

“If I know the Lord, and I think I do, He’ll be glad to take the will for the deed.”

“Reverend,” said my father, “kindly produce your paper. I’ve turned over a new leaf, and I’d like it authenticated in writing. Who knows? The document may eventually assume historical importance.”

For a number of weeks my father pitched into his practice like a man reformed forever. We had letters from home, several from Vernon, and wrote some back, including one to Louisville which hinted that we practically owned San Francisco by now, and suggesting that my mother be “alerted” to join us when he gave the signal. I could see her face when she read it.

Medically, he picked up a very fair number of cases, because people recognized that he was skilled at his job when sober, no matter how much he disliked it. I won’t come out and say he was happy—being a doctor was a strain on him—but he kept plugging away, and in this period, after a lapse of time, he began to write in his Journals again. He wrote up many of his cases, and I’ll tell some, to show how good and careful he was at doctoring when he really buckled down.

April 5, 1851:

Called on a Mrs. Oscar Theobald, aged 40. Symtoms: extensive warmth of rectum, sharp, lancinating pain near anus, red, modulating mass protruding from same, also uneasiness, constitutional disturbance. Diagnosis: Haemorrhoids exterior of the sphincter ani. Treatment: application of ice water, tannic acid, Persulphate of Iron; lessening of constipation by having patient drink several glasses water in morning, also kneading of abdomen, thighs and pelvis plus salt hip bath to relax perineal structures. Lastly, anointed Haemorrhoids locally by introducing wet cigar in rectum.

April 7, 1851:

Called on Swen Nordlund, widower, aged 73. Symptoms: dizziness,
sensation of anxiety at praecordia, vertigo, singing in the ears, abnormal pulse—hard, sharp, quick, dicrotous, intermittent; tenderness on pressure over first and second cervical vertebrae; complaint of dull, aching pain in back of head. Problem: whether symptoms from dyspepsia, chronic inflammation of lungs, severe mental labor, troubled mind from want of success, or sexual excesses, notably masturbation. Diagnosis: irregular heart from last-named cause. Treatment: tincture of Cactus, teaspoon every four hours, together with recommendation patient move from his boardinghouse, where the 17-year-old daughter of proprietor undresses and lolls Narcissistically on bed, nude, within patient’s view from window each evening upon retirement.

I should say here, before continuing, that these cases are exactly the way my father wrote them, but now and then, as only a fool could help but see, he was unable to avoid touching on the humor of certain ones. I think he tried not to, but it crept in, though I’m convinced he kept everything wholly accurate and in line, because I’m sure he felt that people were going to read these Journals someday.

For instance:

April 7, 1851:

Called upstairs to United States Hotel, patient, “Slick” Carstairs, aged around 35, occupation cardsharp. Symptoms: absence of heartbeat, small round blue hole in center of forehead. Diagnosis: Dead. (Of revolver bullet.) Treatment: Placed 3-cent copper coins on eyelids, folded arms on chest, summoned undertaker.