Part 19

“And once last week for the same thing?”

“Yes, but what—”

“Pardon me, do you think your mother-judgment was wise then?”

“Well, really, Dr. Strong,” said Mrs. Clyde, flushing, “you will hardly assume the right of control of the children’s manners—”

“This is not a question of manners. There is where your error lies,” interrupted the doctor. “Against your mother-judgment I set my doctor-judgment, and I tell you now”—his voice rose a little from its accustomed polished smoothness, and took on authority—“I tell you that the boy is no more responsible for his clumsiness than Betty is for bad breathing. It’s a disease, very faint but unmistakable.”

“Not Charley!” said his father incredulously, “Why, he’s as husky as a colt.”

“He will be, please God, in a few years, but just now he has—don’t be alarmed; it’s nothing like so important as it sounds—he has a slight heart trouble, probably the sequel to that light and perhaps mismanaged diphtheria attack. It’s quite a common result and is nearly always outgrown, and it shows in almost unnoticeable lack of control of hands and feet. I observed Charley’s clumsiness long ago; listened at his heart, and heard the murmur there.”

“And you never told us!” reproached the grandmother.

“What was the use? There’s nothing to be done; nothing that needs to be done, except watch, and that I’ve been doing. And I didn’t want to worry you.”

“Then I’ve been punishing him for what wasn’t his fault,” said Mrs. Clyde in a choked voice.

“You have. Don’t punish Betty for what isn’t hers,” countered the physician, swiftly taking advantage of the opening. “Give her her chance. Mrs. Clyde, if Betty were my own, she could hardly have wound herself more closely around my heartstrings. I want to see her grow from a strong and beautiful child to a strong and beautiful girl, and finally to a strong and beautiful woman. It rests with you. Watch her breathing to-night, as she sleeps—and tell me to-morrow.”

He rose and left the room. Mr. Clyde walked over and put a hand softly on his wife’s soft hair; then brushed her cheek with his lips.

“It’s up to you, dearest,” he said gently.

Three days later, Betty, overhanging the side fence, was heard, by her shamelessly eavesdropping father, imparting information to her next-door neighbor and friend.

“You’d ought to get a new nothe, Thally. It don’t hurt much, an’ breathin’ ith heapth more fun!”

Pondering a chain of suggestions induced by this advice, Mr. Clyde walked slowly to the house. As was his habit in thought, he proceeded to rub the idea into his chin, which was quite pink from friction by the time he reached the library. There he found Dr. Strong and Mrs. Sharpless in consultation.

“What are you two conspiring about?” he asked, ceasing to rub the troubled spot.

“Matter of school reports,” answered the doctor. He glanced at the other’s chin and smiled. “And what is worrying you?” he asked.

“I’m wondering whether I haven’t made a mistake.”

“Quite possibly. It’s done by some of our best people,” remarked the physician dryly.

“Not a pleasant possibility in this case. You remember quoting Rochester as to closing the schools and repairing the children. To-day, as I heard Betty commenting on her new nose, it suddenly came to me that I was obstructing that very system of repairs by which she is benefiting, for less fortunate youngsters in our schools.”

“You!” said Dr. Strong in surprise.

“As president of the Public Health League. The Superintendent of Schools came to me with a complaint against Dr. Merritt, the Health Officer, who, he claimed, was usurping authority in his scheme for a special inspection system to examine all schoolchildren at regular intervals.”

“Ought to have been established long ago,” declared Dr. Strong.

“The Superintendent thinks otherwise. He claims that it would interfere with school routine. It’s the duty of the health officials, he says, to control epidemics from without, to keep sickness out of the schools, not to hunt around among the children, scaring them to death about diseases that probably aren’t there.”

Dr. Strong muttered something which Grandma Sharpless pretended not to hear. “And you’ve agreed to support him in that attitude?” he queried.

“Well, I’m afraid I’ve half committed myself.”

“Heaven forgive you! Why, see here, Clyde, your dodo of a superintendent talks of keeping sickness out of the schools. Doesn’t that mean keeping sickness out of the pupils? There’s just one way to do that: get every child into the best possible condition of repair—eyes, ears, nose, throat, teeth, stomach, everything, and maintain them in that state. Then disease will have a hard time breaking down the natural resistance of the system. Damaged organs in a child are like flaws in a ship’s armor-plate; a vital weakening of the defenses. And remember, the child is always battling against one besieging germ or another.”