Lizzy Glenn; Or, The Trials of a Seamstress Part 13

Henry took the hat and started out. He was but a few paces from the shop, before he found that the shoes rubbed both heels, and pressed upon them at the same time so hard as to produce a sensation at each step as if the skin were torn off. Sometimes he would stop and wait a moment or two, until the intolerable pain subsided, and then he would walk on again with all the fort.i.tude and power of endurance he could command. In this extreme suffering, the uppermost thought in his mind, when on the street, kept his eyes wandering about, and scanning every female form that came in sight, in the ever-living hope of seeing his mother. But the sigh of disappointment told too frequently, that he looked in vain. He had not proceeded far, when the pains in his feet became so acute that he paused, and leaned against a tree-box, unable for a time to move forward a single step.

While resting thus, Doctor R--, who had been called to visit a patient in Lexington, came past and noticed him. There was something about the child, although so changed that he did not recognize him, that aroused the doctor's sympathies, and he ordered his man to drive up to the pavement and stop.

"Well, my little man, what's the matter?" said he, leaning out of his carriage window.

Henry looked up into his face, but did not reply. He knew Doctor R--instantly. How strong a hope sprang up in his heart--the hope of hearing from or being taken back to his mother! The kind-hearted physician needed no words to tell him that the little boy was suffering acutely. The flushed face, the starting eye, and the corrugation of the brow, were language which he understood as plainly as spoken words.

"What ails you, my little boy!" he said in a voice of tender concern.

The feelings of Henry softened under the warmth of true sympathy expressed in the countenance and tone of Doctor R--, and still looking him steadily in the face, essayed, but in vain, to answer the question.

"Are you sick, my boy?" asked the doctor, with real and increasing concern for the poor child.

"My feet hurt me so that I can hardly walk," replied Henry, whose tongue at last obeyed his efforts to speak.

"And what ails your feet?" asked Doctor R--.

"They've been frosted, sir."

"Frosted, indeed! poor child! Well, what have you done for them?"

"Nothing--only I greased them sometimes at night; and to-day my master made me stand in the snow."

"The cruel wretch!" muttered Doctor R--between his teeth. "But can't you walk up as far as the drug store at the corner, and let me see your feet?" continued the doctor.

"Yes, sir" replied the child, though he felt that to take another step was almost impossible.

"You'll come right up, will you," urged the doctor.

"Yes, sir," returned Henry, in a low voice.

"Then I'll wait for you. But come along as quickly as you can;" and so saying, the doctor drove off. But he could not help glancing back, after he had gone on about the distance of half a square, for his heart misgave him for not having taken the little fellow into his carriage. He soon caught a glimpse of him on the sidewalk, slowly and laboriously endeavoring to work his way along, but evidently with extreme suffering. He at once gave directions to the driver to turn back; and taking Henry into the carriage, hurried on to the office. The child, when lifted in, sank back upon the seat, pale and exhausted. Doctor R--asked him no question; and when the carriage stopped, directed the driver to carry him in. He then, with his own hands, carefully removed his shoes and stockings. "My poor, poor child!" said he in pity and astonishment, on beholding the condition of Henry's feet. The harsh remedy prescribed by Sharp, if the subsequent treatment had been tender and judicious, might have been salutary; but, after it, to confine the boy's feet in hard, tight new shoes, and to send him out upon the street, was to induce a high state of inflammation, and, in the advanced state of the chilblains, to endanger mortification. Several of the large ulcerous cracks, which were bleeding freely, the doctor dressed, and then, cutting a number of short strips of adhesive plaster, he applied them to the skin over the heel and foot, in various directions, so as almost completely to cover every portion of the surface.

"How does that feel?" he asked, looking into Henry's face with an air of relief and satisfaction after he had finished the first foot.

"It feels a good deal better," replied the child, his voice and the expression of his countenance both indicating that he no longer suffered so excruciatingly as he had but a short time previously.

The other foot was soon dressed in the same way. Doctor R--then went back into the house and got a loose pair of stockings and a light pair of shoes, belonging to one of the apothecary's children, from their mother. These fitted Henry comfortably, and when he stood down upon his feet he did not experience any pain.

"That feels a good deal better, don't it?" said the doctor, smiling.

"Yes, indeed it does," and Henry looked his grat.i.tude; and yet, blended with that look, was an expression that seemed to the doctor an appeal for protection.

"You're afraid to go back now, ain't you, since you've stayed so long?" he asked, in a tone meant to encourage the child's confidence.

"Indeed I am. Mr. Sharp will be almost sure to beat me."

"What a very devil incarnate the man must be!" muttered Dr. R--to himself, taking three or four strides across the floor. "I shall have to take the little fellow home, and browbeat his master, I suppose," he continued. Then addressing Henry, he said, aloud--

"Well, I'll take you home to him in my carriage, and settle all that for you, my little man; so don't be frightened."

Acting upon this resolution, Dr. R--soon drove up before the hatter's shop, and, lifting out Henry himself, led him into the presence of his astonished master.

"What's the matter now?" asked the latter, roughly, and with a forbidding aspect of countenance.

"The matter is simply this, sir," responded Doctor R--, firmly. "I found this little boy of yours on the street absolutely unable to get along a step further; and on taking him into the drug store above, and examining his feet, I found them in a most shocking condition! Why, sir, in twelve hours mortification would have commenced, when nothing could have saved his life but the amputation of both limbs." The sober earnestness of Doctor R--caused Sharp to feel some alarm, and he said--

"I had no idea, doctor, that he was as bad as that."

"Well, he is, I can a.s.sure you, and it is a fortunate thing that I happened to come across him. Why, I haven't seen so bad a case of chilblains these ten years."

"What ought I to do for him, doctor?" asked Sharp, in real concern.

"I have done all that is necessary at present," replied the doctor.

"But he must be suffered to have rest; and, as you value his limbs, don't let him be exposed to the wet or cold until his feet are healed, and the tenderness and soreness are both gone."

"I shall attend to your direction, most certainly," said Sharp, his manner greatly changed from what it was when the doctor came in.

"But, really, doctor," he continued, "I had no idea that there was any danger in getting the feet a little frosted."

"The chilblains are not only extremely painful," replied Doctor R--, "but there is great danger, where the feet are exposed to wet and cold, as Henry's must have been to get in the condition they are, of mortification supervening. That little boy will require great care, or he will stand a chance of being crippled for life. Good-morning!"

Poor Henry! How eagerly had he hung upon the doctor's words; how almost agonizing had been his desire for even the slightest intimation that he was remembered by the physician, to whose mistaken kind offices he was indebted for the place he held in the family of Sharp! But all was in vain. A dozen times he was on the eve of asking for his mother; but, as often, weak timidity held him back. In the presence of his master, fear kept him dumb. It seemed to him as if life would go out when he saw Doctor R--turn away from the shop and enter his carriage. A deep darkness fell upon his spirit.

As Doctor R--rode off in his carriage, he could not help congratulating himself on the good deed he had performed. Still he did not feel altogether satisfied about the boy. He had been so much concerned for his distressed situation, that he had failed to make any inquiries of him in regard to his friends; and for this he blamed himself, because it was clear that, if the child had friends they ought to know his condition. He blamed himself for this thoughtlessness, and a consciousness of having performed but half of his duty to the poor boy caused a shade of concern to steal over him, which he could not shake off.

And Henry, as he stood frightened in the shop, felt, as the carriage-wheels rattled away, the hope that had awakened faint and trembling in his heart, sinking into the gloom of despair. One who could have told him of his mother; one who, if he had only taken the courage to have mentioned his name, could have taken tidings of his condition to her, or perhaps would have carried him home, had been beside him for half an hour, and he had not spoken out. And now he was gone. He felt so sick and weak that he could hardly stand.

From his sad, waking dreams he was roughly startled by the loud, sharp voice of his mistress, who, attracted by the strong expressions of Doctor R--, now entered the shop, exclaiming--

"What's all this? What's that little wretch been doing now, ha?"

"I wish I'd never seen him!" muttered Sharp, but in a tone that left no doubt on the mind of his wife that something more than usually annoying had occurred.

"What's the matter? What's he been doing? Not stealing, I hope; though I shouldn't wonder."

"He's sick, and you've got to take care of him," was the dogged answer of Sharp.

"Sick! He looks sick, don't he?" The tones of the virago were full of contempt.

Any eye but hers would have seen sickness, sorrow, suffering, and want in the pale, frightened face of the poor boy, as he stood trembling beside the counter, and actually clinging to it for support.

"Who was that in here, just now?" she added.

"Doctor R--, of Boston," replied the hatter, who knew the doctor by sight very well.

"What did he want?"

"He picked Henry up in the street and took him over to the drug store at the corner. Then he brought him home in his carriage. He says that he must be taken care of, or he will become a cripple; that it's the worst case of chilblains he ever saw; and that his feet are in danger of mortification."