CHAPTER XIV. WINNING GOLDEN OPINIONS.

"In the morning, Perk, I want you to help me about finding a boarding-place, or some room that I can hire cheap, and board myself. I should prefer a garret, as that will be the cheapest. There"—laying a two-dollar bill on the table—"is every cent of money I possess in the world; and if I study medicine I must have books, that come very high, instruments by and by, and instruction from an experienced physician. I am, to be sure, well clothed. I have clothing sufficient, with economy, to last for years, but money I have none."

"I know I am not capable of giving you advice, and cannot expect that you will receive it from me as you would from Mort; but I beg of you, whatever you do, don't go to starving yourself; it will be a losing game in the end. If you are going to work hard all day in school, and then study when out of it, you need, and must have, good, nourishing food, and plenty of it. There was Eckford, of our class, lived on water[Pg 161] gruel and molasses, and roast potatoes, and made out to graduate. But what did he ever amount to, more than sweetened water?"

"He never was more than half alive, to begin with. I am in good case, and must economize the last cent."

"Economize, with a vengeance! Saving at the tap, and spilling at the bung-hole. A precious doctor you'll make. Going to dry up the juices, both of body and brain, by starvation. Now let me plan. My aunt has considerable land and other property, and needs some one to aid her in the care of it. Dan is a mere boy, and it brings a good deal of care upon her. If you will see to her affairs, cut the wood, take care of the garden in the summer (Dan milks, and takes care of the cow and horse), keep her accounts, and just do what pertains to the house (if there is anything beyond that, she will hire other help), you can stay in this room, have your board, fuel, and a horse to ride occasionally, you can borrow medical books of Dr. Ryan, practice on my aunt, who is in delicate health, dearly loves to take medicine, wears a Burgundy pitch plaster between her shoulders, reads Buchan's Domestic Medicine, and Parson Meek will pray for you. I think this will be a great deal better than your starvation plan, unless you think it would be derogatory to your character, and injure your [Pg 162]influence as principal of the academy, if it should be known that you cut wood and did chores."

"Derogatory!" cried Rich, jumping up. "I don't value the opinion of any who think honest labor derogatory that," snapping his fingers. "If they don't like it, they may dislike it. I can earn as much at the anvil as I can here, and all the reason I prefer it is, I can study when I have done my day's work here; and after I have been at work in the shop all day I am tired and sleepy. I will most gladly fall in with the offer of your aunt, and do all or anything she wants done."

"Rich, you are no more like a fellow we used to call Rich in Radcliffe, than chalk's like cheese."

"I've been through a 'discipline,' as President Appleton would say. Then, I used to dip my fingers in rose water of a morning, and dress my hair with pomatum. Since that, I've had to wash in an iron-hooped bucket, and wipe on a tow towel cousin german to a nutmeg grater. Sweat and coal dust have taken the place of pomatum. It didn't last, however, longer than the first term of the freshman year. I caught an expression on Mort's face one day, when I was fixing up before the glass, that made me, as soon as his back was turned, fling the rose water and pomatum into the slop pail. I tell you, Perk, there's no tonic equal to iron. I mean to give lots of it when I am a doctor."

[Pg 163]

"So I think; but I like to take it best in the shape of a gun barrel, a fish-hook, or a pair of skates."

The number of pupils in the academy was quite large, and, as was customary in those days, they consisted of both sexes, ranging in age from ten to nineteen, and even twenty years. There were boys fitting for college, and others pursuing English studies. Some of the older scholars studied surveying, book-keeping, and navigation.

Rich gave himself wholly to his work, and speedily created among his scholars not merely an attachment to himself, but enthusiasm in study, and desire to excel. It was soon evident, both to the trustees and more advanced scholars, that their present teacher was greatly superior in every department, not only to Perk, but any instructor who had preceded him.

The fact that he did chores, and attended to business matters, in order to defray the expense of his board, so far from proving derogatory, as Perk had hinted, operated in precisely the opposite manner. Had he resorted to this method of reducing his expenses from penuriousness, and an overweening desire to accumulate, such, doubtless, would have been the result, and the proceeding would have excited both ridicule and contempt.

The instincts of the boys, however, divined that this was not his character. They felt [Pg 164]themselves drawn towards him by that magnetic influence that his college mates confessed, and were proud of his scholarship and commanding ability, that even those who could not appreciate felt. In addition to this they were not long in discovering that, although he did chores, and even cleaned out the pig-sty, he was the best dressed man in the town on the Sabbath, which was to them a sore puzzle. But when it leaked out, probably through Perk, that he had been reared in affluence, was now flung upon his own resources, struggling to obtain a professional education, and that his style of dress was merely the remnant of better days, and not occasioned by mere love of display, the knowledge produced universal sympathy and respect, the whole community vying with each other in the manifestation of it.

Although practising the most rigid economy, husbanding every moment of time, and performing a great deal of labor, the noble nature of Rich manifested itself in a thousand ways; and strange it is how this unwritten, unspoken language of the heart is generally felt and understood. He was patient with the dull, encouraged the industrious, and stimulated to the utmost those scholars possessed of superior ability, while the mere desire to merit his esteem and affection roused indolent and wayward boys to persevering effort, and inspired them with a love of study and spirit of emulation they had never felt before.

[Pg 165]

But when Granny Fluker (after he went into the blacksmith's shop, made a new crank to her flax wheel, mended the cover of her Dutch oven, that was broke in two, by drilling holes in it, and putting wrought iron cleats across, fastened with rivets, and made a new bail to the oven) exclaimed, "God bless the young gentleman for condescending to sich a poor old worn-out critter as I am, that have to be helped by the town. Well, it's allers the way, in this world; them what's got the biggest hearts to do allers have the least to do with. But if the prayers of a poor old lone body like me can do him any good, he'll sartain have 'em."

She expressed the universal sentiment of the whole community.

To increase still more the estimation in which Rich was held, it was ascertained that he was an excellent singer. The parish choir was in a most wretched condition. A maiden lady, who had long been distinguished as a singer, began to show unmistakable signs of age, and her voice cracked. She received from the younger members sundry hints to leave. These she took in high dugeon, and left, together with a brother and two sisters, who were fine singers, and who espoused her quarrel. Before the new members who were introduced upon their leaving could be drilled, the chorister, who had made a great part of the disturbance, left town, taking his bass-viol with him.

[Pg 166]

In this condition of things, Rich was invited to take the lead of the choir, and accepted, established choir meetings, and soon put matters to rights; while the refractory brother and his two sisters, finding that they were not necessary, got over their huff, and came back.

The younger portion of the choir, ascertaining from Dan Clemens that Rich played the violin, persuaded him to bring it to church the next Sunday. The moment Rich drew the bow across the strings, Deacon Starkweather got up, slamming the pew door after him, left the church, and going into the pasture, out of sight and sound of the ungodly thing, sat down on a stump, in a snow-storm, till he judged it was time for the sermon to begin, when he returned, as he had no quarrel with Parson Meek, and merely wished to show his displeasure, and enter a protest against the fiddle. Rich, however, smoothed all asperities, and reconciled the worthy deacon, by persuading the members of the parish most interested in music to purchase a bass-viol, upon which he performed to the satisfaction of all; Deacon Starkweather inviting Rich, and all the members of the choir, to tea, when he explained to them that he had never cherished the least hardness against any member of the choir, but that his action was in reference to the instrument, and the associations connected with that exponent of folly, and concluded with a most generous[Pg 167] contribution toward the purchase of the bass-viol. Thus was the affair that at one time threatened to break up the parish most happily settled. Rich earned the reputation of a peacemaker, and young man of excellent judgment, and the deacon, through his device delivered from an uncomfortable position (as his conduct by no means met with general approbation), became the staunch friend of Rich, declaring, upon every proper occasion, that "he was a young man that had the root of the matter in him."

The period at which Rich began the study of medicine was the commencement of a great revolution in medical theory and practice, both in relation to the treatment of disease and surgery; young and earnest men were struggling in every direction for light; new discoveries were made, reverence for the past was gradually wearing off, and the old theories of practice were subjected to a most searching and often irreverent scrutiny.

Dr. Ryan by no means belonged to that class of mind sometimes designated by the term, "The sword frets out the scabbard." On the other hand, he was hale and hearty, possessed of a noble frame, hair slightly tinged with gray, but ruddy cheeks, a fine set of teeth of pearly whiteness, and a frank, hearty manner, betokening real goodness of heart.

Though possessed of very moderate abilities, the doctor was a man of sterling worth, great integrity, and kind and sympathizing nature. He[Pg 168] enjoyed a large practice, being the only physician in the place. The poor loved him, because he was ever as ready to attend to their wants as to those of his more wealthy patients, often put shoes on the feet of a barefooted child, and did not hesitate to bestow flannels and fuel, when he felt that they were more necessary than medicine. The utmost confidence was reposed in him, as his more intelligent patients, if disposed to doubt his skill in difficult cases, knew perfectly well that he would not hesitate a moment in calling in more competent persons, when he felt their aid was required.

At this period the spirit of inquiry was abroad. There were rumors in the air, and forebodings of a radical reform in medical practice. Practitioners of the doctor's age, who were either too indolent, prejudiced, or too far advanced in life to receive and act upon new ideas, were by no means to be envied, being somewhat in the position of one upon a ledge in the sea, cut off by the tide, that, constantly rising, rendered his passing into oblivion merely a question of time.

The old physicians stigmatized these disturbers of the peace of antiquity and their own as quacks, new lights, upstarts, and utterly unsafe as experimenters with human life. The advocates of the improved practice, on the other hand, were by no means backward in denouncing their seniors as fossils, petrifactions, enemies to all progress,[Pg 169] and only desirous of retailing drugs at ninety per cent. profit, and fattening the graveyards; of promoting gangrene, and needless amputations, through their ignorance of the first principles of surgery; multiplying cripples by malpractice and ignorance of anatomy; that they had one mode of treatment for all disorders; and the time-honored allusion to "Procrustes' bed" was lavishly applied to their opponents.

The good doctor, firmly wedded to the ancient practice, felt all the animosity his genial nature permitted him to indulge in respect to the new lights; and when he heard that a young man thoroughly impregnated (as he could not doubt) with radical notions, was about to take the academy, and had already commenced the study of medicine, he felt very much as an old crower, who has walked in state, and lorded it over his dames, might be supposed to feel when he sees a young rooster suddenly flung down in the barn-yard, and inwardly resolved that the young upstart should receive neither aid, comfort, nor countenance from him.