Part 62

Dear Professor Gray: You have indeed been a benefactor to me. Before our baby was born my husband and I were the happiest of couples. Then I became a nervous wreck. I couldn’t sleep. I was cross and irritable. My nerves seemed all on fire. Your first treatment worked wonders. I slept like a log. Since then I have not been without Gospel Herbs in the house, and I am a well woman.

(Signed) Mrs. Howard Cleary.

“That was a year ago,” continued Dr. Strong. “Yesterday we visited the Cleary home. We found a broken husband and a deserted baby. The young wife we traced to Worthington, where we discovered her—well, I won’t name to this audience the sort of place we found her in.

“But so far as there can be a hell on this earth, she had descended into it, and this,” he held the vial high to view, “this sent her there.” His fingers opened; there was a crisp little crash of glass, and the red-brown liquid crept and spread along the floor, like blood.

“Morphine,” said Dr. Strong. “Morphine, which enslaves the body and destroys the soul. There are your Gospel Herbs!”

A murmur rose, and deepened into a growl. The Great Gray Benefactor, his face livid, sprang forward.

“Lies!” he shouted. “All lies! Where’s his proof? What’s he got to show? Nothing but his own say-so. If there’s a law in the land, I’ll make him sweat for this. Mr. Huddleston, I appeal to you for justice.”

“We shall be glad to hear from the Reverend Mr. Huddleston,” mildly suggested the chairman, who was evincing an enjoyment of the proceedings quite puzzling to Dr. Strong.

The old clergyman got slowly to his feet. His mild, weak face was troubled. “Let us bear and forbear,” he pleaded in a tremulous voice. “I cannot believe these charges against our good friend, Professor Gray. I am sure that he is a good and worthy man. He has given most liberally to the church. I am informed that he is a member of his home church in good and regular standing, and I find in the editorial columns of the ‘Church Pillar’ a warm encomium upon his beneficent work, advising all to try his remedies. Surely our friend, Dr. Strong, has been led astray by mistaken zeal.

“Only yesterday two members of my congregation, most estimable ladies, called to see me and told me how they had benefited by a visit just made to Professor Gray. He had treated them with his new Gospel Elixir, of which he has spoken to me. There was evidence of its efficacy in their very bearing and demeanor—”

“I should say there was! And in their breath. Did you smell it?”

The interruption came in a very clear, positive, and distinct contralto.

“Great Grimes’s grass-green ghost!” exclaimed Mr. Thomas Clyde, quite audibly amidst the startled hush. “Grandma Sharpless is among those present!”

“I—I—I—I do not think,” began the clergyman, aghast, “that the matter occurred to me.”

“Because, if you didn’t, I did,” continued the voice composedly. “They reeked of liquor.”

The tension to which the gathering had been strung abruptly loosened in mirth.

“Mrs. Sharpless will please take the platform,” invited the Mayor-chairman.

“No, I’ll do my talking from here.” The old lady stood up, a straight, solid, uncompromising figure, in the center of the floor. “I met those two ladies in the parsonage hall,” she explained. “They were coming out as I was going in. They stopped to talk to me. They both talked at once. I wouldn’t want to say that they were—well—exactly—”

“Spifflicated,” suggested a helpful voice from the far rear.

“Spifflicated; thank you,” accepted the speaker. “But they certainly were—”

“Lit up,” volunteered another first-aid to the hesitant.

“Yes, lit up. One of them loaned me her bottle. If I’m any judge of bad whiskey, that was it.”

An appreciative roar from the house testified to the fact that Mrs. Sharpless had her audience in hand.

“As for you women on the stage,” she pursued, rising to her topic, “I know what’s wrong with you.‘Mandy Gryce, if you’d tend more to your house and less to your symptoms, you wouldn’t be flitting from allopathic bud to homoeopathic flower like a bumblebee with the stomach-ache.” (“Hear, hear!” from Mr. Gryce.) “Lizzie Tompy, your fits are nine tenths temper. I’d cure you of ‘em without morphine. Miss Smithson, if you’d quit strong green tea, three times a day, those nerves of yours would give you a fairer chance—and your neighbors, too.” (Tearful sniffs from Miss Smithson.)

“Auntie Thomas, you wait and see what your rheumatism says to you to-morrow, when the dope has died out of your system. Susan Carlin, you ought to be home this minute, looking after your sick boy, instead of on a stage, in your best bib and tucker, giving testimonials to you-don’t-know-what-all poison.

“Bairdstown’s Suffering Womanhood!” exclaimed the vigorous old lady, her color rising with her voice. “Go home! Go home, you poor, self-coddling fussybuddies, to your washboards and your sewing-machines and forget your imaginary symptoms.

“There!” she drew a long breath, looking about over the group of wilting testimonial-givers. “That’s the first speech I have ever made, and I guess it’ll be the last. But before I stop, I’ve got a word to say to you, Professor Graham Gray. Bless us! Where’s the man gone?”

“Professor Gray,” announced the chairman with a twinkle in his voice, “has retired to obtain fresh evidence. At least, that is what he said he had gone for.”