Part 51

“One mark against Bobs,” announced the doctor. “The rigor of the game.”

A game it proved to be, with Charley for umpire, and a very keen umpire, as he was the beneficiary of the penalties. For some days Charley quite fattened on literature dispensed orally by the incautious. Presently, however, they became so wary that it was hard to catch them.

Then, indeed, was the doctor hard put to it to keep the invalid amused. The children invented games and charades for him. A special telephone wire was run to his room so that he might talk with his friends. Bobs won commendations by flying a kite one windy day and passing the twine up through Charley’s window, whereby the bedridden one spent a happy afternoon “feeling her pull.” And the next day Betty won the first and only dollar by discovering a small and early fly which, presumably, had crawled in by the hole bored for the kite twine. As to any encroachments upon the physical quiet of his patient or the protective guardianship surrounding him, the Health Master was adamant, until, on a day, after examining the prisoner’s throat and nose, and going over him, as Mr. Clyde put it, “like a man buying a horse that’s cheaper than he ought to be,” he sent for the Health Officer.

“It’s a clean throat,” said Dr. Merritt. “Never mind the desquamating skin. We’ll call it off.”

Whereupon Charley was raised from his bed, and having symbolically broken the tape-line about his bed, headed a solemn and slow procession of the entire family to the front porch where he formally took down the red placard and tore it in two. The halves still ornament the playroom, as a memento.

After this memorable ceremony, Mrs. Clyde retired to the library and, quite contrary to her usually self-restrained nature, dissolved into illogical tears, in which condition she was found by the rest.

“I—I—I don’t know what’s the matter,” she sobbed, in response to her husband’s inquiry. “It’s just because I hated the very thought of that abominable red sign so,—as if we were unclean—like lepers.”

“Well, we’re not lepers and if we can continue in that blessed state,” remarked Dr. Strong cheerfully, “we can escape most of the ills that flesh is heir to. After all, from a scientific point of view, contagion is merely the Latin synonym for a much shorter and uglier word.”

“Which is—” queried Mr. Clyde.

“Dirt,” said the Health Master.

VIII. HOPE FOR THE HOPELESS

“Hopeless from the first,” said old Mrs. Sharpless, with a sigh, to her daughter.

Mrs. Clyde nodded. “I suppose so. And she has so much to live for, too.”

“What’s this that’s hopeless from the first?” asked the Health Master, looking up from the novel which he was enjoying in what he called his “lazy hour,” after luncheon.

“Mrs. Westerly’s case,” said the younger woman. “Even now that she’s gone to the hospital, the family won’t admit that it’s cancer.”

“Ah, of the liver, I suppose,” commented the physician.

“Why on earth should you suppose that?” demanded Mrs. Sharpless suspiciously.

“Why, because cancer of the liver is the only form which could possibly be regarded as hopeless from the first.”

“All cancer, if it is really cancer, is hopeless,” declared the old lady with vigorous dogmatism. “Don’t tell me. I’ve seen too many cases die and too few get well.”

“Were those ‘few’ hopeless, too?” inquired Dr. Strong with bland slyness.

“I guess they weren’t cancer, at all,” retorted Mrs. Sharpless; “just doctors’ mistakes.”

“Doctors do make mistakes,” admitted the representative of the profession, “and cancer is one of the diseases where they are most commonly at fault. But the error isn’t of the kind that you suggest, Grandma Sharpless. Where they go wrong so often is in mistaking cancer for some less malignant trouble; not in mistaking the less malignant forms for cancer. And that wastes thousands of lives every year which might have been saved.”

“How could they have been saved?” asked the old lady combatively.

“Let me do the questioning for a minute, and perhaps we’ll get at that. Now, these many cases that you’ve known: were most of the fatal ones recent?”

“Not very,” she replied, after some consideration. “No; most of them were from ten years ago, back.”

“Exactly. Now, the few that recovered: when did these occur?”

“Within a few years.”

“None of the old cases recovered?”