Dr. Hardhack's Prescription Part 1

Dr. Hardhack's Prescription.

by Katharine McDowell Rice.

_DR. HARDHACK makes a professional visit to the _Proudie_ mansion, New York City. In the sitting-room are gathered GRANDMA PROUDIE (L), MAMMA PROUDIE (C), AUNT FLIGHTY (R)._

MAMMA PROUDIE. I greatly fear our dear Emily will never be restored to health.

AUNT FLIGHTY. Oh, don't say that. I've known people to look terribly white and a great deal thinner than Emily, and not die of it.

GRANDMA PROUDIE. [_To MAMMA P._] I thought you were going to send for Dr. Hardhack.

MAMMA P. I have sent for him. [_Sighs, rises and comes forward, taking chair_] [_R_] But what can he do? Someway it doesn't seem as if he could help. He's such a small man.

GRANDMA P. Size doesn't matter if one has brains. It's brains that count, my dear. Napoleon was small, but he will live forever. And look at Alexander Pope. [_Waves hand_]

AUNT F. [_Runs to window_] What! Where is he? Whom did you say to look at?

GRANDMA P. [_Witheringly_] Alexander Pope, who has been dead one hundred and fifty years.

AUNT F. [_Simpering_] Oh, I thought you said to look at somebody going by.

GRANDMA P. I said "Look at Alexander Pope," by which I meant "Consider Alexander Pope"--a small man, not ever growing to be much larger than a child. But what a poet! Brains, my dear, brains. In my day it was brains that decided a person's value. Sometimes I think they have gone out of fas.h.i.+on.

MAMMA P. But they will come in again, mother. All the old fas.h.i.+ons come round in about so many years, they say.

GRANDMA P. [_Who has returned to her knitting_] Perhaps the time has come then for brains, for every one speaks so highly of Dr. Hardhack.

_Enter MAID_

MARY. Dr. Hardhack, madam.

MAMMA P. You may bring him in, Mary. [_Maid turns to go, but finds DR.

HARDHACK at her heels_]

MAMMA and GRANDMA P. [_Gasp_] Oh, Dr. Hardhack!

AUNT F. Oh, oh! We did not know you really had come!

DR. HARDHACK. Good morning, ladies. Couldn't stop to be formally announced. [_Puts his hat absently in AUNT F's sewing-basket. Basket falls and all the things go tumbling out. DR. H. does not notice_]

AUNT F. [_Simpers_] Oh, oh! [_MAID comes forward and a.s.sists AUNT F. in picking up things_]

DR. H. [_Looks about circle_] Which is my patient, please?

MAMMA P. It is my daughter Emily. I will send for her. [_To MAID_] Mary, will you ask Miss Emily to come? [_Exit MAID_] Oh, Dr. Hardhack, before she comes I must say a word to you. [_DR. H. takes chair_] We would be willing to found a water-cure, to hire a doctor on purpose, to try homeopathy or hydropathy or allopathy or any other pathy that ever was heard of if our dear elegant Emily could only be restored. It is her sensitive nature that wears upon her. She was never made for this world.

She has an exquisiteness of perception that makes her feel even the creases in a rose leaf.

DR. H. Stuff and folderol, my dear madam! [_ALL start. AUNT F. gasps and simpers_]

MAMMA P. You are the nineteenth physician that has been called in to dear Emily.

DR. H. Well, I hope that I may cut out number twenty! [_Enter EMILY very pale and listless_] Oh, here comes the young lady herself. [_Bows to EMILY, which greeting E. very languidly returns_] Humph! Let me look at her. [_Puts up his gla.s.ses and looks through them_] [_E. stands supporting herself by table as though very weak_] Humph! A fas.h.i.+onable potato sprout! Grown in a cellar! Not a drop of red blood in her veins!

GRANDMA P. [_Aside to MAMMA P._] What odd ways he has, to be sure. But then they say that's the way he talks to everybody.

DR. H. My dear madam, you have tried to make a girl out of sugar and almond paste, and now you are distressed that she has not red blood in her veins and that her lungs gasp and flutter as she goes up-stairs.

Turn her out to gra.s.s, my dear madam, turn her out to gra.s.s!

AUNT F. [_With hands over ears_] Oh, oh!

DR. H. Yes, I mean what I say. Send her to old Mother Nature to nurse.

MAMMA P. [_Exultantly_] I have said all along, Doctor, that I thought we ought to have a trained nurse for Emily.

DR. H. Trained fiddlesticks! [_ALL start_] Send her somewhere to a good honest farmhouse in the hills, and let her run barefoot in the morning dew, drink new milk from the cow--

MAMMA P. [_Interrupts_] Oh, Doctor, not new milk! Not unsterilized milk!

[_AUNT F. holds up hands in horror_]

DR. H. I mean what I say, madam. Let her drink new milk from the cow, romp in a good wide barn, learn to hunt hens' eggs, a few things like this, and I warrant me you'll see another pair of cheeks in a year. Take off all whalebones and strings around her lungs. Give her a chance, madam, give her a chance!

MAMMA P. But what medicine shall she take, Doctor?

DR. H. [_Roars his disapproval_] Medicine? No medicine. Medicine won't do her any good. You may make an apothecary's shop of her stomach--

AUNT F. Oh, oh!

DR. H. [_Turns toward AUNT F._] Yes, _stomach_,--make an apothecary's shop of her stomach, and matters will be only the worse. Why, there isn't enough iron in her blood to make a needle. [_Points to needle in AUNT F'S hand_]

AUNT F. [_Simpers_] Oh, oh!

MAMMA P. Iron in her blood! I never heard the like!

DR. H. Yes, iron, red particles, globules or whatever you please to call them. Her blood is all water and lymph, and that is the reason that her cheeks and lips look so like a cambric handkerchief, why she pants and puffs if she goes up-stairs. [_Motions to E. to come forward, puts head to examine heart_] Her heart is all right if there were only blood to work it in, but it sucks and wheezes like a dry pump for want of vital fluid. [_Emphatically_] She must have more blood, madam, and Nature must make it for her.

GRANDMA P. We were thinking of going to Newport, Doctor.

DR. H. [_Derisively_] Yes, to Newport! To a ball every night and a flurry of dressing and flirtation every morning! No such thing! Send her to an unfas.h.i.+onable old farmhouse where there was never a more exciting party than a quilting frolic heard of. Let her learn the difference between huckleberries and blackberries, learn where checkerberries grow thickest and dig up sweet flag root with her own hands as country children do. It would do her good to plant a few hills of potatoes--

AUNT F. _Our_ Emily! Potatoes! Oh, dreadful, dreadful!

DR. H. Yes, potatoes. Plant a few hills of potatoes and hoe them herself as I once heard of a royal princess doing, because [_With emphasis_]

_queens_ can afford to be sensible in the bringing up of _their_ daughters!

MAMMA P. What you say is all very new, Dr. Hardhack. Indeed, we had never thought of such a thing as sending Emily into the _real_ country.

But I will talk it over with Mr. Proudie, and see what he thinks of it.