They Called Her Mrs. Doc. (18 page)

She was about to open the door and step through to the kitchen when she heard a noise. It came from the corner of the yard where the sandbox was located. She turned, thinking it to be one of the neighborhood children, but there sat Joseph. He was busy with a small shovel, scooping up sand to fill a little box he had found somewhere. He was totally absorbed in his play, not even noticing his mother until she cried his name and ran toward him. When he did lift his head, he grinned a happy grin and went back to filling his box.

“Joseph!” cried Cassandra again. “You’re home. You’re home! Where have you been?”

The little red head lifted again and he held out his shovel toward his mother. “Yook” was his only comment.

Cassandra saw his torn shirt, his dirt-smeared face, a shoeless foot. But she concentrated only on his sparkling hazel eyes. He was home! He was whole! She hugged him to her as she thanked God, and baby Vivian protested loudly.

They never did learn where Joseph had been. The missing shoe was never found.

Chapter Fifteen

Experiences

Cassandra stood at the kitchen cupboard peeling potatoes for the evening meal. Joseph played in the yard with neighborhood children. At four, he now understood that he was not to leave his yard without his mother’s permission.

When Cassandra heard him cry out she turned from the potato pan, wiping her hands on her apron as she rushed toward the back door. In the process she nearly tripped over young Vivian, who was playing with her doll baby on the floor.

“Oh my!” she exclaimed. She didn’t know whether to take Vivian with her or leave her and run to Joseph. She was slow enough now in her movements with a third child soon to join the family.

“You stay put, sweetie,” she said to Vivian and rushed out.

When Cassandra reached the play yard she was totally unprepared for what greeted her. Joseph sat screaming on the ground, his hands holding his head, and between his fingers oozed blood that dripped on his shirt front. Cassandra was sure he must be about to breathe his last.

“What happened?” she screamed at the neighborhood children who gathered around, speechlessly observing the flow of blood.

It seemed to bring Robert, one of the children, back to coherence. “The swing hit him,” he cried, and then the others began to respond with excited yells and even wilder swinging of their arms to show what had happened.

Cassandra reached for Joseph who was still screaming at the top of his lungs.

“Someone run for the doctor!” shouted Cassandra, but everyone stared at her wildly.

“Run for the doctor,” she repeated, lifting the bleeding boy into her arms and running for the house.

Vivian had followed her mother out the door and was standing on the steps. As soon as she saw her brother with his face covered in his own blood, she too began to cry. Cassandra didn’t know what she would do with another frantic child. Nor did she know where or how badly her son was hurt. From the amount of blood all over his shirt and now on the front of her as well, she thought he must be seriously injured. She hoped and prayed that one of the children had obeyed her cry and gone for help.

“Come with Mama,” Cassandra urged Vivian, opening the door and following the child in.

She stood holding the boy, looking out the window for someone to come to her aid. She didn’t know how to care for him. Samuel was the doctor. Cassandra had never been able to stand the sight of blood. All she could do was to rock him gently in her arms, to comfort him. It didn’t work and soon Cassandra was crying right along with her two offspring.

A heavy step pounded across the back porch and Samuel burst into the house. “What happened?” he asked as he reached for Joseph.

“The swing!” cried Cassandra. “He got hit with the swing. He’s hurt badly, Samuel. He’s bleeding—”

“Head cuts always bleed a lot,” Samuel interrupted her; then seeing her pale face, he nodded toward a kitchen chair. “You’d better sit down.”

Cassandra managed to get the chair under her and leaned down to scoop Vivian into her arms. “Sh-h,” she whispered, trying to soothe her. “Sh-h. Papa’s here now. Joey will be all right.”

Samuel grabbed a clean towel from a kitchen drawer and began to wash the boy to determine the location and extent of injury. Joseph screamed even louder and Vivian joined in. Cassandra felt as if she were going to smother from the tension.

“Hush,” she heard Samuel say rather sternly to young Joseph. “Let me look at your cut. Don’t fuss so.”

For some strange reason, Joseph seemed to listen to his father and the wild screams changed to whimpers. Vivian, too, quieted her crying, though she still clung to Cassandra.

“It’s not too bad,” Samuel the doctor was saying. “It’s not deep—but it will need some stitches or it will scar.”

Then he turned to Cassandra. “I might need your help. Do you feel up to it?”

Cassandra looked at him with large, startled eyes.

“Me?”

“I need someone to hold his hands while I stitch. One wild sweep of a hand could do more damage than the swing did,” he explained calmly.

Cassandra eased Vivian away from her and stood to shaky feet. She took one tentative step and then another and soon she was beside Samuel, looking down at her son. He did look much better now that Samuel had washed away much of the blood, but the open wound on his forehead still seeped bright red liquid. Cassandra felt her knees giving way and she bowed in prayer and asked God for His strength for the task ahead.

Joseph lifted his eyes to study her face. She managed a wobbly smile. She even managed to speak. “Papa has to sew up the cut,” she said evenly, firmly, “and it is very important that you hold still and not bump his hand. Do you understand? Mama is going to help you keep your hands perfectly still. We’ll put them both here—on your chest—and Mama will put her hands here.” She took the hands of the child firmly in her own. “Now, you watch me—not Papa.”

Out of the corner of her eye Cassandra could see the needle with its trailing thread in Samuel’s fingers. Again she thought her knees would surely buckle under her, and she prayed and willed the dizziness from her whirling head.

“What do you want to do after Papa is all done?” she asked Joseph, wanting to keep his full attention.

“I want to play with Anthony again,” the boy said without hesitation.

“Well, it’s almost suppertime,” said Cassandra, attempting a matter-of-fact tone in her voice. When she had first arrived in the little prairie town, she had vowed she would never, never change the evening meal from dinner to supper. But she had. In fact, over the months that she had lived in the West, many things had been slowly changing in the life and thinking of Cassandra.

“Anthony’s mother might want him home,” she went on to explain.

Joseph looked about to cry again and Cassandra quickly amended her statement. “But we’ll see. There might be time to play for a while yet.”

Samuel made another stitch. The boy seemed to pay little attention.

“What will you and Anthony play?” asked Cassandra, trying hard to buy some time. She prayed that Samuel was almost done.

“In the sandbox—with my little wagon,” answered the boy.

Then his eyes shifted from Cassandra to his father, and he noticed for the first time the hand that held the needle, with its thread now red from his blood.

At first his eyes grew wide as though he couldn’t understand the implication, but he quickly sorted it out and just as quickly began to shriek. Now Cassandra’s strength was pitted against her son’s. He tried to free his entrapped hands so that he might fight to protect himself, and it was all that Cassandra could do to hold him. With a few more quick stitches Samuel finished the job and Joseph was wiped off, bandaged, and freed to stand on his own.

Tears still ran down his cheeks, and he looked at both his “Well, it’s almost suppertime,” said Cassandra, attempting a matter-of-fact tone in her voice. When she had first arrived in the little prairie town, she had vowed she would never, never change the evening meal from dinner to supper. But she had. In fact, over the months that she had lived in the West, many things had been slowly changing in the life and thinking of Cassandra. parents for as much sympathy as they could possibly muster. It was then that Cassandra noticed Vivian. She stood on a kitchen chair, her head craned so she could see better, her eyes wide with the wonder of it all. She was not crying; she was not even pale. She looked as though she had been wonderfully captivated by the whole procedure.

When Samuel snapped shut his medical bag, she looked at him pleadingly. “Fix him some more, Papa,” and waved a chubby hand in Joseph’s direction.

Samuel and Cassandra exchanged glances, then began to chuckle as Samuel reached for his small daughter and hugged her.

“So you will be Papa’s nurse, will you?” he said, giving her a few sound pats on her solid bottom. “I guess I should have had
you
holding brother’s hands instead of your poor mama.”

Joseph had stopped crying and reached up a hand to feel his bandage.

“You bleed, Joseph,” Vivian informed him, and her voice held a note of excitement as though bleeding was something quite special.

Joseph grinned and Cassandra breathed a little prayer. “It’s over. Thank you, God.”

“You even bleed on Mama,” went on the girl and pointed with her stubby finger.

Cassandra looked down to where the little finger was pointing and saw that her blouse billowing around their next child was also covered with Joseph’s blood. Such red, red blood.

She felt her knees going weak again and this time she was totally unprepared and there was no stopping her. Had Samuel not been there to grab her, she would have collapsed on her kitchen floor.

That night Christina Marie was born. Though two weeks early, she was wiry and seemingly unscathed by the day’s events. She had a powerful set of lungs, and Cassandra lay back on her pillow and wondered what on earth she would do if all three of them should decide to cry at once.

She managed to sleep after the birthing and opened her eyes later to find the room quiet and the baby sleeping soundly beside her. Everything seemed so still it was eerie, and then she remembered that Samuel had said he would take the two older ones to Virginia so the exhausted new mother might get some rest. She closed her eyes and slept again.

When the door opened later and Samuel came in to stand beside the bed, Cassandra looked up from the infant daughter sleeping in the curl of her arm.

“Is she all right?” she asked frankly.

“She’s just fine,” he assured her again as he had many times since the baby’s arrival.

“She’s smaller than the others,” observed Cassandra.

“Give her a couple weeks—the time she should have arrived—and she will likely pass both of their birth weights,” he promised.

Cassandra smiled at her baby.

“I got the wire off to your folks,” he said, rubbing his hands together because the early morning air held a chill.

Cassandra lifted her eyes to his.

“Mama will think I do nothing but have babies,” she said in a soft voice.

“Do you mind?” asked Samuel.

“Mind?” Cassandra turned her head to kiss the warm little bundle that rested against her. “They’re beautiful babies” was her answer. She hesitated for a moment, then went on softly, “And they have a wonderful father.” She reached out to squeeze his hand. “And I have a wonderful doctor,” she said with teasing in her voice.

That summer, Samuel decided it was time to add on to their house. With three little ones underfoot, they needed more room. The construction time was a real trial to Cassandra. Besides the prairie dust that yearned to seep in through every small crack around doors or windows, she now had the added dust from saws and hammers. There was also the noise. It seemed that just as soon as she managed to get a child to sleep, the din would start, waking the little one again.

She knew that in time she would be thankful for the additional room, but there were many days when Cassandra frankly wondered if it was really worth it.

Finally the last board was cut, the last nail hammered, the last swish of paint brushed on the new walls, and Cassandra was free to clean up the mess and move her simple furnishings into their proper places.