The Story of a Doctor's Telephone—Told by His Wife. Ellen M. Firebaugh

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       Ellen M. Firebaugh

      The Story of a Doctor's Telephone—Told by His Wife

      Published by Good Press, 2021

       [email protected]

      EAN 4064066128920

Table of Contents

       CHAPTER I.

       CHAPTER II.

       CHAPTER III.

       CHAPTER IV.

       CHAPTER V.

       CHAPTER VI.

       CHAPTER VII.

       CHAPTER VIII.

       CHAPTER IX.

       CHAPTER X.

       CHAPTER XI.

       CHAPTER XII.

       CHAPTER XIII.

       CHAPTER XIV.

       CHAPTER XV.

       CHAPTER XVI.

       CHAPTER XVII .

CHAPTER I.

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      The hands of the clock were climbing around toward eleven and the doctor had not returned. Mary, a drowsiness beginning to steal over her, looked up with a yawn. Then she fell into a soliloquy:

      To bed, or not to bed—that is the question:

      Whether 'tis wiser in the wife to wait for a belated spouse,

      Or to wrap the drapery of her couch about her

      And lie down to pleasant dreams?

      To dream! perchance to sleep!

      And by that sleep to end the headache

      And the thousand other ills that flesh is heir to,

      The restoration of a wilted frame,—

      Wilted by loss of sleep on previous nights—

      A consummation devoutly to be wished.

      To dream! perchance to sleep!—aye, there's the rub;

      For in that somnolence what peals may come

      Must give her pause. There is the telephone

      That makes calamity of her repose.

      Her spouse may not have come to answer it,

      Which means that she, his wife, must issue forth

      All dazed and breathless from delicious sleep,

      And knock her knees on intervening chairs,

      And bump her head on a half open door,

      And get there finally all out of breath,

      And take the receiver down and say: “Hello?”

      The old, old question: “Is the doctor there?”

      Comes clearly now to her awakened ear.

      Then, tentatively, she must make reply:

      “The doctor was called out an hour ago,

      But I expect him now at any time.”

      Good patrons should be held and not escape

      To other doctors that may lie in wait;

      For in this voice so brusque and straight and clear

      She recognizes an old friend and true,

      Whose purse is ever ready to make good,

      And she hath need of many, many things.

      But then, again, the message of the 'phone

      May be that of some stricken little child

      Whose mother's voice trembles with love and fear.

      Then must the listener earnestly advise:

      “Don't wait for him! Get someone else to-night.”

      Perchance again the message may be that

      Of colics dire and death so imminent

      That she who listens, tho' with 'customed ear,

      Shrinks back dismayed and knows not what to say,

      Lacking the knowledge and profanity

      Of him who, were he there, would settle quick

      This much ado about much nothingness.

      And so these anticipatory peals

      Reverberate through fancy as she sits,

      And make her rather choose to bear the ills

      She has than fly to others she may meet;

      To wait a little longer for her spouse,

      That, when at last she does retire to rest,

      She may be somewhat surer of her sleep.

      And so she sits there waiting for the step

      And the accompanying clearing of the throat

      Which she would know were she in Zanzibar.

      And by-and-by he comes and fate is kind

      And lets them slumber till the early dawn.

CHAPTER II.

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      Ten P.M. The 'phone is ringing and the sleepy doctor gets out of bed and goes to answer it.

      “Hello.”

      No response.

      “Hello!”

      Silence.

      “Hello!!”